In the main event of Bellator 131, Tito Ortiz narrowly defeated his latest nemesis, Stephan Bonnar, by split decision. The victory gives Ortiz his second straight, and there are only a few options that make sense for Tito’s next fight.
Bellator has announced the first three shows of 2015, and beyond those shows, they should book Tito Ortiz against either Quinton “Rampage” Jackson or “King” Mo Lawal. Either fight would register as significant with casual fans of mixed martial arts, and either would be worthy of headlining their first big “tent-pole” event of the new year.
The first reason Tito needs to fight one of these two is that there aren’t very many other fights that make sense. You could give Ortiz a title shot against the winner of Emanuel Newton vs. Liam McGeary, but he’d most likely get beat into a living death by either of them, as most people would anticipate, so beyond that fight he’d have little remaining value as a headliner once he were to lose.
Lawal has already lost to the champ twice, and he lost a close fight to Rampage earlier this year, so there aren’t a lot of valuable fights to him to take right now, either.
Per The MMA Report, at the Bellator 131 post-fight press conference, Lawal voiced his interest in fighting Ortiz, saying:
Now if you want some, you get some. I’m just saying. You fought Bonnar, no offense to Bonnar, but Bonnar has been gone for two years. That’s fine. I’ll Django your ass. Straight up, Django. I will bust your ass, straight up. I’m serious.
Although Lawal is confident that he’d beat the former UFC light heavyweight champion, he isn’t convinced that Ortiz will fight him, saying, “You ain’t going to fight me, I know that. You’re going to be, ‘My neck, my back, my knee.'”
The fight makes sense for both fighters, but if Tito is uncertain about getting in the cage with King Mo, he should fight the other former UFC light heavyweight champion on Bellator’s roster, Quinton Jackson.
Ortiz and Rampage were originally supposed to headline Bellator 106 before Tito had to pull out of the fight with a neck injury just a week before the event. The two then went on separate paths through the Bellator roster.
Rampage ran through Joey Beltran and Christian M’Pumbu and then won a narrow and controversial decision over Lawal in his three fights in the Bellator cage.
Ortiz came back from the neck injury and answered a challenge from then-middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko at Bellator 120, and put the Russian to sleep in the first round. Now that Bonnar is in his rear-view, the Rampage fight makes plenty of sense for Ortiz to take.
Since the departure of Bjorn Rebney from Bellator, Rampage Jackson’s fighting status has been up in the air. A recent Instagram post from Jackson indicated that he’s having problems with the new regime at Bellator but said he ultimately wasn’t done fighting. Regardless of what his qualms are, he originally signed with Bellator for a fight with Ortiz. He should have no problem facing Tito under Scott Coker’s new big lights and big entrance stage.
Even though Emanuel Newton is the champion and Liam McGeary is undefeated with every single victory coming by way of a stoppage, these three men are the biggest names in Bellator right now. It’s time for Ortiz to move away from the “freakshow” fights and the grudge matches, and face a legitimate challenge, which either Mo Lawal or Rampage Jackson could provide.
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