Report: Tito Ortiz to Affliction
August 5, 2008 by Sam Caplan
Bryan Alvarez of Figure 4 Online is reporting that former UFC light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz is expected to announce during a press conference tomorrow that he has signed with Affliction.
Ortiz completed his UFC contract at UFC 84 on May 24, losing a unanimous decision to undefeated light heavyweight Lyoto Machida.
Immediately after the bout, Ortiz became a restricted free agent with the UFC still retaining a right of first-refusal. However, that contract provision expired in recent days, making Ortiz an unrestricted free agent.
Previous reports have indicated that a light heavyweight bout between Ortiz and Renato “Babalu” Sobral, another former member of the UFC’s 205 lbs. division, are expected to fight during Affliction’s next show on Oct. 11 in Las Vegas at the Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of UNLV.
The event will be titled “Affliction: Day of Reckoning” and will be headlined by a heavyweight bout between a pair of former UFC heavyweight champions, Andrei Arlovski and Josh Barnett.
Sam, maybe you can explain this to me…but reports were he was a restricted free agent until the 4th…contract negotiations take more than 2 days. How can it be legal to cannibalize talent from another fight organization when the fighter is in a blackout period?
And with this, Affliction’s last card will be October 11 … he probably broke the bank on this one, considering he said awhile back he wanted at least a million per fight
They will be fighting for WAMMA’s new “Totally Irrelevant Former UFC Badguy” World Championship Belt. Now I will surely drop $40+ on a PPV… hahahahaha HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
MMA math Affliction less Fedor = KTFO!!!
I don’t think Babalu is a good fight for him. All he has is a name right now that Affliction can use to get some extra PPV buys.
i think babalu will destroy him if he’s not a shot fighter after the ifc tourney and other ko’s he’s suffered recently
What a sales job by Tito. I’ll be shocked if he delivers on half of the 500K PPV buys he’s promised.
Great move for Tito, since he likes ducking top competition. Since Afliction has, what, ZERO top LHs???? Babalu will give him a fight and may beat him.
Tito os a joke and I hope he signs some long term deal and Affliction goes out after their next show fails to make the 12 million they spent to be it together
I can’t wait to see this fight I am a huge Tito fan he is an exciting fighter. I hope affliction does well they are good for mma as a whole.
stevefiji - I agree with everything you said. No Fedor = no interest in Affliction
Babalu vs. Tito for the Affliction LHW belt? They might want to downplay the fact that both of these guys were unable (given several attempts to do so, I might add) to defeat the 4th best UFC LHW.
I know he was champ then, but still, I doubt either of them could knock off Chuck today.
HAHAHA all you haters said Affliction would be done after their first show! Now they have two of the most popular UFC Light Heavyweights! Everyone get off Dana’s dick and support other organizations and that will force the UFC to get better.
Both of these fighters have seen better days. If this was say 3 or 4 years ago this matchup would be fire, but it’s not and support garbage isn’t good for MMA. Tito and Babulu ( who has gotten banged out in his last 2 fights) are fighting for the belt that’s a joke. I feel a lot better if each fighter had won a couple of fights within the organization before this title contest. It doesn’t feel legitimate for the winner whoever that turns out to be crowned champ.
YAWN.
if affliction has fedor, i will buy
if you dont watch affliction make it true faggots you look likes chicken.
mma + good talent = i like to watch.
affliction has been doing that, so I’ll keep watching. forget the fanboys of either side.