Tag: UFC 148

Tito Ortiz Talks Bout with Forrest Griffin, Confirms It’s His Last UFC Fight

When Tito Ortiz makes his next appearance in the Octagon, it will be his last. The former UFC light heavyweight champion is set to meet Forrest Griffin at UFC 148 in July, where the two competitors are prepared to settle their trilogy.Ortiz sat do…

When Tito Ortiz makes his next appearance in the Octagon, it will be his last. 

The former UFC light heavyweight champion is set to meet Forrest Griffin at UFC 148 in July, where the two competitors are prepared to settle their trilogy.

Ortiz sat down with FightersOnly.com in an exclusive interview to discuss his final bout with Griffin, among some of the other relevant topics surrounding the sport today. The 37-year-old Ortiz confirmed he will retire following the bout.

“The last fight is Forrest Griffin, its on July 7 in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand,” Ortiz said. “I just gotta do the work, I’ve took myself up to Big Bear – which is a camp I haven’t been up to in the last couple of years – because its important that I do the right things to prepare for this fight so that when I leave I get my hand raised.”

Seeing his hand raised is not something Ortiz has been familiar with for quite some time. His last victory came over Ryan Bader last year, but prior to that, “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” had not won since 2006, compiling a 1-6-1 record in his last 10 bouts. 

It is no secret that Ortiz is no longer the fighter he once was, but yet he continues to defy the odds and put on a good performance for the fans. Once perceived with bad boy image, Ortiz is wiser and more grateful at this stage in his career and hopes he becomes more of an inspiration to fans as he nears the end of his career.

Regardless of the outcome against Griffin, Ortiz is content with the career he has had and the success he has made for the sport.

“I have had a long and illustrious career of fifteen years. I’m the longest-competing UFC fighter to date, most consecutive UFC appearances, most light-heavyweight title defences,” he said. “I am very thankful, when I look at my career, and I want to leave on my own terms. I am very happy with it.”

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Will Tito Ortiz Be MMA’s Brett Favre?

Tito Ortiz will be making his last walk to the Octagon on July 7 at UFC 148 against Forrest Griffin.The fight will cap off the trilogy between the two fighters that has spanned six years. The two first fought in 2006 at UFC 59 in which Ortiz won via sp…

Tito Ortiz will be making his last walk to the Octagon on July 7 at UFC 148 against Forrest Griffin.

The fight will cap off the trilogy between the two fighters that has spanned six years. The two first fought in 2006 at UFC 59 in which Ortiz won via split decision.

Griffin evened the score three years later at UFC 106 with a split decision win of his own.

Whether Ortiz wins or loses, his MMA fighting career is going to end that night. Or is it?

Will the former Huntington Beach Bad Boy be able to stay away from the spotlight of fighting and ride off into the sunset? Or will he follow the retirement template of Brett Favre and continue to show up whenever an organization shows interest in him?

Let’s face it, Tito Ortiz was great for the UFC. It says a lot about his fan base that he is still able to sell fights considering he has a record of 1-6-1 over the last five-plus years. His marketability, not his performance, has allowed his fighting career to continue.

I firmly believe this is Tito’s last fight. The People’s Champ (I really dislike this nickname for him) made one last hail mary attempt at a title run when he took on Rashad Evans on short notice at UFC 133. Should he had won that fight, he would have been given the chance to fight for the championship.

The outcome wasn’t favorable for Ortiz, and he then lost once again this past December to “Little Nog”. He now finds himself way off the beaten path from earning a belt. He understands that he will never be a UFC champion again, and he knows his time is done.

As Tito wraps up his MMA career, I’ve learned to respect him more than I have at any point of his career. He has evolved from a perceived selfish individual to somebody who appears to be more of a giver.

Through his Twitter account, Tito is consistently communicating with fans and posting encouraging thoughts with the intention of passing along a positive message to his followers.

It would not be surprising to see Tito enter some sort of corporate position with the UFC soon after his fight with Forrest. He is a smart business man who has solidified his Punishment Athletics brand as one of the most recognizable names in MMA.

While his career in the cage is fading, he has immense potential for what he can do outside of it.

Do not expect Tito Ortiz to waiver back and forth on whether or not to fight again. He has too much to accomplish in the MMA world outside of fighting. 

His bout on July 7 against Forrest Griffin will be the absolute final chapter of his professional fighting career.

 

Follow Joe Chacon on Twitter to discuss this and all things MMA.

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UFC 148: Why Demian Maia’s Move to Welterweight Is the Right Decision

Demian Maia is arguably the best Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner in MMA today. He started his career 11-0 and had eight submission victories in that time.He has tapped out such names as Chael Sonnen—who he took down with a fantastic throw off th…

Demian Maia is arguably the best Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner in MMA today. He started his career 11-0 and had eight submission victories in that time.

He has tapped out such names as Chael Sonnen—who he took down with a fantastic throw off the cage—Nate Quarry, Jason MacDonald and Ed Herman.

Also, he fought Anderson Silva for the UFC middleweight title at UFC 112, a fight he lost by unanimous decision.

Overall in his career, Maia is 15-4 and is a borderline Top 10 middleweight.

However, Maia has recently announced that he will drop down from the middleweight division and will now fight in the welterweight division. He will make his divisional debut at UFC 148 against “The Stun Gun” Dong Hyun Kim.

Maia dropping down to welterweight is the right decision, and it is the only one left for him, if he has any hopes of ever holding a UFC belt.

As mentioned, Maia went 11-0 to start his career, which is when it all started to go downhill for him.

He has gone 4-4 since that time and hasn’t looked nearly as impressive as he did to start his career.

First, he was knocked out in 21 seconds by Nate Marquardt. He then rebounded with a unanimous decision win over Dan Miller, which was followed by the Anderson Silva atrocity.

After that he had two more decision victories over Mario Miranda and Kendall Grove. Then he faced off against the fast-rising Mark Munoz, where he lost another decision.

He followed that with a win over Jorge Santiago, and then he had arguably the worst performance of his career against Chris Weidman.

It was that fight that prompted Maia to make the move to welterweight.

With all four of his losses coming against Top 10 middleweights, there was nothing left for him in the division and no foreseeable way for him to get back to the title.

A drop to the welterweight division will likely improve the cardio of Maia, as he’ll have to do more training to make sure he makes the 170-pound limit.

Additionally, with the welterweight division having a large number of wrestlers, Maia will get a chance to take fights to the ground, where he can look to submit his opponents.

The fight against Dong Hyun Kim will be huge for Maia. Kim has only been beaten by the interim champion, Carlos Condit.

If Maia can beat Kim, he’ll prove that he’s a threat in the welterweight division.

 

Tim McTiernan is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. For the latest news on everything MMA, follow him on twitter @TimMcTiernan.

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UFC News: Rich Franklin Believes He Could Beat Anderson Silva in a Third Fight

Rich Franklin was the UFC middleweight champion, boasting an incredible record of 22-1-1 after a March 2006 win over David Loiseau. “Ace” seemed like he would dominate the UFC’s 185-pound division for many years to come—that is, until Anderson Si…

Rich Franklin was the UFC middleweight champion, boasting an incredible record of 22-1-1 after a March 2006 win over David Loiseau. “Ace” seemed like he would dominate the UFC’s 185-pound division for many years to come—that is, until Anderson Silva came to town. 

Silva defeated Franklin in devastating fashion at UFC 64, and again had his hand raised in the rematch at UFC 77. 

Since the second loss to “The Spider,” Franklin hasn’t looked like the dominant force he once was, compiling a record of 4-3 and looking to be in the twilight of his career at 37 years old. 

However, if the UFC offered the former high school math teacher a third fight with Silva, don’t expect Franklin to turn it down. Don’t expect him to lacking confidence going into the fight, either.

“If I was able to put another title run together and the UFC wanted to do another fight with Anderson, I would be willing to do another fight with Anderson,” Franklin told MMACanada.net.

“And I believe—and this is just because the champion mentality in my head—but I believe that given another shot, I could win that fight.”

Between his two bouts with the pound-for-pound great, Franklin only managed to survive for slightly over four minutes of action inside the Octagon. 

Franklin, who begins speaking around the 2:45 mark of the video, also addresses how his injury rehabilitation has gone, his upcoming UFC 148 bout with Cung Le, and recently being called out by Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.

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Renan Barao: UFC Bantamweight Champion in Waiting?

Renan Barão has flown in under the radar. Outside Brazil, the 25-year-old has failed to generate the hype normally associated with a 29-fight unbeaten streak and a 65 percent finishing record. Following the strangling of Brad Pickett and a unani…

Renan Barão has flown in under the radar. Outside Brazil, the 25-year-old has failed to generate the hype normally associated with a 29-fight unbeaten streak and a 65 percent finishing record. Following the strangling of Brad Pickett and a unanimous decision victory over Scott Jorgensen, however, “Renan Mota do Nascimento Pegado” will not linger in relative obscurity for long.

The Brazilian’s official UFC statistics display the components of a definitively well-rounded game. With his skills divided between 36 percent submissions, 38 percent striking and 26 percent takedowns, Renan is a rare breed. The Nova União product’s 93 percent success rate in takedown defence is similarly impressive, placing him firmly in the “new wave” of fighters emanating from Rio and São Paulo.

While Brazil has long been known for producing Muay Thai fighters packing stellar submission skills, we are also beginning to associate MMA‘s motherland with excellent defensive wrestling. Like his teammate José Aldo, Barão’s wrestling skills have been honed for the purpose of range control—to finish fights rather than to “play MMA” as a point-scoring exercise. Should the 25-year old win a decision, we may assume that his opponent has merely survived. 

If we were inclined to continue drawing parallels between Renan and the featherweight champ, we could comfortably amuse ourselves for an age. Aside from sharing a practice room, Barão and Aldo both attribute their “warrior” mindset to a gritty upbringing packed with adversity and strife. Renan remembers “a lot of chaos, a lot of suffering” while growing up, claiming that these troubles helped to produce an indomitable spirit and impressive work ethic, the foundation of his recent success.

 

One look at a highlight reel exposes the young fighter as a liar. Not only is Barão an unstoppably hard worker and unbreakable competitor, he is also unspeakably gifted—the timing, accuracy and power showcased by Natal native can be sharpened, but can never be learned from scratch. Renan Barão has always been a phenom-in-waiting.

Who need concern themselves with Barão’s rise? Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber, for starters. While the Brazilian’s next scheduled fight is against the hard-as-nails Ivan Menjivar, Cruz and Faber need to start thinking about Renan now. Even with the bantamweight champ’s blistering footwork, and Faber’s undeniable talent, it would not be shocking to see an Aldo-esque beatdown if Barão enters the cage with either man.

Take note, MMA fans: a wonder has landed. Renan Barão already possesses the mind, skills and heart of a champion; the belt is sure to follow suit.

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Melvin Guillard to Be Strangled by Fabricio Camoes at UFC 148 and Other UFC Fight Booking Announcements


(Dammit! This was so much easier to escape in the video game!)  

On the heels of two straight submission via rear-naked choke losses courtesy of Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller, former “top contender” Melvin Guillard’s stock is probably at an all time low. The UFC, likely recognizing Melvin’s need to step up his ground game or GTFO, are not cutting him any slack, as they have paired him against 3rd degree (uh-oh) BJJ black belt (not good) under Royler Gracie (dear God) Fabricio Camoes. The worst part: Camoes is coming off a submission by rear-naked choke victory at UFC on FX: Guillard vs. Miller.

Game. Set. Soon.

Look, we’ve got mad respect for Melvin Guillard; how can you not love someone whose idea of avoiding the takedown is repeatedly throwing flying knees? But this does not look good for “The Young Assassin,” who may very well get the boot if he is submitted for the seventh time in his UFC career come July 7th. Come on Zuffa, you can’t even give him some low-level nobody to squash first?

Matter of fact, it looks to us like the UFC is trying to punish each and every member of The Blackzilians for Anthony Johnson’s colossal mistake. Have the Zuffa attorneys not informed DW and Joe Silva that judging a certain group of people based on one isolated incident is considered profiling, and could lead to a huge backlash from said group? If we could think of any examples from American history, say from around the 1960’s, that could possibly help prove this point, we would. Unfortunately, no such example exists. Perhaps we’re just lucky.

Join us after the jump for a ton of fight booking news…


(Dammit! This was so much easier to escape in the video game!)  

On the heels of two straight submission via rear-naked choke losses courtesy of Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller, former “top contender” Melvin Guillard’s stock is probably at an all time low. The UFC, likely recognizing Melvin’s need to step up his ground game or GTFO, are not cutting him any slack, as they have paired him against 3rd degree (uh-oh) BJJ black belt (not good) under Royler Gracie (dear God) Fabricio Camoes. The worst part: Camoes is coming off a submission by rear-naked choke victory at UFC on FX: Guillard vs. Miller.

Game. Set. Soon.

Look, we’ve got mad respect for Melvin Guillard; how can you not love someone whose idea of avoiding the takedown is repeatedly throwing flying knees? But this does not look good for “The Young Assassin,” who may very well get the boot if he is submitted for the seventh time in his UFC career come July 7th. Come on Zuffa, you can’t even give him some low-level nobody to squash first?

Matter of fact, it looks to us like the UFC is trying to punish each and every member of The Blackzilians for Anthony Johnson’s colossal mistake. Have the Zuffa attorneys not informed DW and Joe Silva that judging a certain group of people based on one isolated incident is considered profiling, and could lead to a huge backlash from said group? If we could think of any examples from American history, say from around the 1960′s, that could possibly help prove this point, we would. Unfortunately, no such example exists. Perhaps we’re just lucky.

Speaking of fighters who will find themselves in the unemployment line with another loss, it looks like a “loser leaves town” match has been booked between Leonard Garcia and Matt Grice, this one at UFC on FX 3. Currently 1-4 in under the Zuffa banner, Matt “The Real One” Grice has suffered submission defeats to Shannon Gugerty and Terry Etim and TKO losses to Matt Veach and Ricardo Lamas. Garcia, on the other hand, is coming off back to back karmic defeats in rematch bouts against Chan Sung Jung and Nam Phan. If Garcia were to somehow lose this one, we imagine he’d stand a better chance of sticking around than Grice, but let’s just say that a loss by either = the soup kitchen and watch the leather fly.

Coming off a successful UFC debut in which he beat down Kamal Shalorus en route to a third round rear-naked choke victory, undefeated prospect Khabib Nurmagomedov will take a huge step up in competition when he faces Gleison Tibau at UFC 148. We don’t know exactly where we’d place Tibau on our “Good, Bad, and Ugly” scale of dropping weight; ever since cutting down from welterweight following UFC 65, he has managed to make 155 lbs on most of his attempts, yet shows up looking like MuscleBob BuffPants come fight night. I guess we’d categorize him as “Freakish.” In either case, Tibau’s put together a hell of a run at lightweight, going 4-1 in his last 5 and most recently snagging a close decision victory over Rafael Dos Anjos.

In UFC on FX 4 news, TUF 9 winner Ross Pearson and WEC veteran Cub Swanson are set to lock horns in a featherweight contest. After going 5-2 as a lightweight, Pearson recently made the trip down to 145 at UFC 141 and proceeded to chase Junior Assuncao around the octagon like he was Kalib Starnes en route to a unanimous decision victory. In the aftermath of Pearson’s “Quarrian” effort, Assuncao was released by Zuffa, and still isn’t sure why. Shame.

Meanwhile, the bearer of perhaps the worst tattoos in all of MMA rebounded from a UFC debut loss to Ricardo Lamas at the inaugural UFC on Fox event with a brutal, mouthpiece ejecting TKO of George Roop at UFC on FOX 2. Swanson has gone win-loss in his last seven contests, and holds notable victories over Mackens Semerzier and that’s it. Put your money on the Brit, ladies and gentlemen.

UFC on FX 4 goes down from the the Revel Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey (*shudder*) on June 22nd.

Who ya got?

-J. Jones