Will A Victory Over Tito Ortiz At UFC 132 Mean Anything For Ryan Bader’s Budding MMA Career?
Four months ago, Ryan Bader was battling Jon Jones to determine who would be the next great light heavyweight fighter.
At the time of the fight, Bader was undefeated (12-0) and Jones had one DQ loss. But there was no doubt that these two men were going to carry the torch for the 205 pound division for a long time to come.
Jones prevailed in that fight and went on to win the light heavyweight title six weeks later at UFC 128, and is the toast of the MMA world right now
Bader, meanwhile, has been off for four months following that loss. He returns to the octagon this weekend at UFC 132 against Tito Ortiz.
Ortiz still has the name recognition, but he is not the fighter that he once was. He is a shell of his former self, and a win over him just doesn’t mean what it once used to.
I expect Bader to win. He is the better fighter and has much more talent than his opponent does. But I am struggling to figure out what he gets if he wins this fight. It looks good to a casual fan because they just hear the name Tito Ortiz and think “Wow, that’s impressive.” But when they dig deeper they will see that it’s not as big of a deal as you would think.
Bader should be in more high profile fights against guys who are contenders or on the verge of being contenders in the light heavyweight division, not against an over-the-hill guy who hasn’t won since 2006.
This fight means a lot more for Ortiz, who is fighting to save his job, than it does for Bader.
Hopefully this is just a fight that UFC sees as a stepping stone for Bader, who is a good fighter and deserves to be challenging more prestigious fighters than what he is getting at UFC 132.