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From maxfighting.com
TITO ORTIZ ANF THE FACTS OF LIFE
Eight-month old Jacob Ortiz doesn't know it yet, but he's got a tough daddy - maybe the baddest man on the mixed martial arts planet.
But for now, dad isn't Tito Ortiz, UFC light heavyweight champion; he's just that big guy who plays with him, hugs him and tucks him in at night. Because in only eight months of life, it's impossible to know the impact he's had on his father's life.
But Tito knows.
"I'm not fighting for myself anymore," Ortiz told MaxFighting. "I'm fighting for my son. I have to think about his future. I'm only going to be in mixed martial arts for the next 3-4 years so I have to take advantage of that time, and that's what's really making the decisions for me right now - my son. More than anything, it's all about him right now. I've never realized I could love someone as much as him and I want to make sure he doesn't have a life like I had it growing up. All that matters is my son and making it right for him."
Spoken like a true father, and unless you've stood in those same shoes, you wouldn't know what a child will do to change your outlook on life. What you thought was important really isn't anymore; bad days can be erased with a single smile on that little face; and if you thought you worked hard before, you work even harder with a mouth to feed.
A harder working Tito Ortiz is bad news for future opponents, but more on that later. If Jacob Ortiz is anything like his father, he will get on the Internet someday and read about his father, a man who is not only his own personal superhero, but superhero to scores of fight fans. Here are some facts about his father that he may not know.
Fact #1 - No one works harder than Tito Ortiz - no one
Anyone who has seen Ortiz train will not forget it anytime soon. Pushing himself past normal endurance limits, a typical training session with Ortiz includes blood, sweat, and a number of trips to the nearest garbage can for, well, you can figure it out. Ever since his loss to Frank Shamrock in 1999, Ortiz has made it clear that while he may someday lose in the Octagon, it won't be because he was outworked in training.
"I've got it down to a science for training where I know exactly when to taper off and when to push myself really hard," said Ortiz. "There are roller coasters when you're having a bad day, but you suck it up. One thing about fighting is that I can prepare for a fight two-three times a year. In that time, as soon as I'm done preparing for a fight, there's no doubt in my mind that I'm going to win."
Such physical torture takes its toll, and at the age of 28, it may be reaching the point where Ortiz is seeing the end of the road in the next few years. And each time he needs to re-dedicate himself physically and mentally to his chosen sport, it gets harder. It's natural.
"That's always happening, no matter what," admits Ortiz. "Especially with all the kinds of things that are coming up for me, doing the movie deals and all that. There are all other kinds of options to make money instead of beating up my body. I just got to have the drive to keep doing what I do when I train. I push my body for three months non-stop seven days a week and I try to do as much as possible."
The latest push was last November, when Ortiz helped bring in the best pay-per-view numbers since the UFC's early days in a three-round pummeling of Ken Shamrock in Las Vegas. Fresh off an ACL injury, Ortiz had the weight of the sport on his shoulders as he prepared to step into the cage at the MGM Grand. Nothing a little video game carnage won't cure.
"There was a lot of mental preparation, that's for sure," said Ortiz. "On the day of the fight I was sitting down with my friends and we were playing Halo on Xbox. I knew in my mind that I had everything physically in the right areas. I had all my cards dealt and I knew what cards to lay down when it was time to fight."
"Mind wise, as soon as I get in the arena, that's when it sets the tone of 'all right, now it's time to fight. Now it's time to get serious,'" continued Ortiz. "I put my running shoes on and do a light jog. I'm warming up, hitting pads, and then it comes to the point of 10-15 minutes before the fight and I always vomit and tears will come out of my eyes. I don't know what the reason is. Its just emotion. People see me fight and I fight like no other fighter in the UFC. I have so much emotion and so much aggression. I never stop moving. In my mind, it's just don't stop moving until the match is over and you'll have no problem with it. That's the whole idea. So when I step in there and you see the ferocity I go in there with, no one's gonna stop me. Whoever's standing on the other side of the Octagon, I have to go through that person because I'm fighting for my family, my fans, and that's what really matters."
Fact #2 - Tito Ortiz cares about the fans, no matter what some of them have to say about him
Visit any message board for any major professional sport (or even a niche sport such as boxing), and you will not see a Barry Bonds, Rich Gannon, Kobe Bryant, or Lennox Lewis conversing with their fans. It just doesn't happen. Tito Ortiz is the biggest star in mixed martial arts today, and yet he is a regular visitor to Internet message boards, and whether this is wise or not, it has endeared him to the folks who fork out the cash to see him and his peers fight.
"I love doing that, and that's part of my job," said Ortiz, who travels light, i.e. - no bodyguards or lackeys to keep the fans at bay. "I do this stuff for all the fans and I'm here to support them. I could be a role model but I don't want to be because I make mistakes just like every other human being. In my mind it's just more about being an inspiration for people. I've had so many E-mails, and I've talked to people in person who told me how much I've changed their lives. I show them how to train hard and be good people in their lives and they do that and become better people because of it. I have to do this for the fans because they pay so much to see my fights and hopefully I inspire them to be better people."
That spoils the fans too, though, and there are always the bad apples that spoil a good thing, like when some random poster wants to drop a dime on Ortiz for any number of reasons, from not fighting certain opponents to not wearing the right color shorts on fight night. And he does take it personally, though you'll never see him sweat it, because that's how a champion carries himself.
Fact #3 - Like NBA legend Larry Bird, Tito Ortiz makes those around him better
Mention the names Ricco Rodriguez, Quentin "Rampage" Jackson, and Phil Baroni to a mixed martial arts fan, and they will tell you that all three have risen to the top of the MMA game in the last 12 months. Every member of this trio has spent time training with Ortiz, and each member has emerged as an elite fighter. Ortiz couldn't be prouder.
"Ricco has done so much," said Ortiz. "You've seen the kid come from 300 pounds down to 235 pounds, with cartwheels, flying knees, kicks, punches - he's just a dominating person. "Rampage" is probably one of the toughest 205-pounders out there beside myself. He's gonna dominate Pride and be the champion in Pride. He has a lot of talent. He doesn't even understand how much talent he has. He's awesome. I still support everything he does and I'll be training with him this week to get him ready for Kevin Randleman. Phil Baroni is a kid who needs the right guidance. I think he's a champion in his own right and I believe he'll become middleweight champion. He's going to be taking people out because that's what he does. I think he's going to beat (Matt) Lindland. I have nothing against Lindland, I think he's a great fighter and he beat Phil the first time, but I think Baroni, if he's doing the right things, has the will to win."
Fact #4 - Tito Ortiz will do anything for a friend; Tank Abbott is not a friend.
On February 28, UFC icon Tank Abbott makes his return to the Octagon against Frank Mir. In his early days in the UFC, Ortiz was portrayed as not only a training partner of Abbott, but a protégé of sorts. It's been a long time since those days, and Ortiz' memories of Abbott, past and present are not fond ones. And though he respects the man's right to make a living, he believes Abbott's mere bar fighter image hurts the sport he's fought so hard to bring to the mainstream.
"If you watched "The Best Damn Sports Show", that shows all the mainstream fans how far the UFC has really come, and from what I saw, it looked like it hasn't come very far at all," said Ortiz. "I have no problem selling out the arenas. I don't know what other guys' problems are. And I'm paying the price for guys not selling out arenas. Hopefully Tank can bring it back, but at the same time, I don't think it's good for the sport. But that's in my eyes."
"Tank is not even a friend of mine," continues Ortiz. "I have nothing bad to say about the guy but when I tried to get back in the UFC a second time, he told Bob Meyrowitz that he would never fight again if he (Meyrowitz) let me fight in the UFC. Luckily Pedro Rizzo knocked his ass out because that's what opened the door for me. I thought he was a friend and he wasn't a friend. I lost complete respect for him, and I still don't have respect for him. And then when he comes out in UFC 40, during the biggest fight of my life and he's talking smack. Grow up. How old is he now?"
"It's going to be a good fight Friday night, and hopefully Frank Mir will come out on top. I think the kid has a big opportunity, and if he's training hard I think he has a chance of beating Tank. But at the same time, I don't want to waste my breath on Tank. I could care less about the guy. He's going to be here today and gone tomorrow the way I think about it. Who cares about Tank Abbott? What about Ricco Rodriguez? We're talking about the heavyweight champion of the world, the guy who dominated Randy Couture and made him look horrible. I looked at the "Best Damn Sports Show" and they didn't say anything about Ricco Rodriguez defending his world title or people like Caol Uno and BJ Penn. Yeah, Tank's name still sells but you've got to worry about the guys who are making the sport happen."
Fact #5 - Tito Ortiz is a fighter…now, not forever
As mentioned earlier, fatherhood changes you and matures you at the same time. Once a stone cold fighter willing to throw down wherever or whenever his name was called, Tito Ortiz now knows that there is a world outside of the fight game. And when he's finished as a fighter, he'll have to do something with his time and his life. But unlike many participants in combat sports, Ortiz is not waiting until retirement to think about such matters. He's taking care of that preparation now.
"I'm going to be undefeated for the next three years," said Ortiz. "But at the same time, I'm working on my acting. I have been for the last two and a half months."
Ortiz is in the upcoming DMX / Jet Li movie "Cradle to the Grave" but he admits that the part "was more just stuntman / fight action." He has loftier goals for himself as an aspiring thespian. "I want to get into acting where there are speaking lines and I can be other people. I'd love to do that and I've been working on it. I think this is my future. I'm not going to fight for the rest of my life. I see how a lot of boxers come up, make their money, go down, and they have to come back and fight to make money. I want to make sure that doesn't happen. Acting is something I need to sit down, study, and go over and over again, just like fighting. I'll just throw the same love I have for fighting into acting."
Fact #6 - Tito Ortiz will not be rushed into anything
You've read this far and you want to know about Ortiz' future in the Octagon, not the sound stage. Well, he's not talking yet, but like Ali, he shall return.
"Sometime this year," Ortiz said cryptically when asked about his return to fighting, and you can almost see the smirk on his face. "I just have to make sure my management does the right things and they make sure I do the right things. I have no problems with the next opponent that the UFC has for me to fight. It's just a matter of me stepping up and doing it, and making it happen. Before the summer, that's my plan."
And despite the fears of his die-hard supporters, don't expect to see Ortiz in against a stiff when he does return. And though he's not talking names, let's just assume his ol' buddy Chuck Liddell will be standing across the cage from him the next time we see him in action.
"Each time I want to test myself," said Ortiz, eschewing talk of a warm-up bout sandwiched between big media events such as fights vs Shamrock and Liddell. "I fought against Shamrock to test myself, plus I was just coming off my ACL injury so it was kind of a warmup fight for me. The big game was to fight Chuck Liddell. I never wanted to deal with it just because he was a friend, but in his mind, he wants a taste of what the belt tastes like, and he's gonna come up short. So it's just a matter of time. But at the same time, just doing the right things is what really matters."
If the fight against Liddell does come off, it will be a cap on an era in the UFC's short history under Zuffa. And Tito Ortiz will have a dilemma of who to fight next? But like any great champion, Ortiz is always a step ahead, and he's already pondering his fighting life after the biggest fight of his career.
"Heavyweight is an idea," admits Ortiz. "Hopefully that's where the bigger money will be, at least by the time I go up to heavyweight. But at the same time, I still have some more guys to fight. I've got Chuck of course, Vanderlei Silva, and then I don't know, do I make a lineup and go all the way back again to my first fight with Guy Mezger and work my way back? I don't know what to do. After Chuck, who is there? Vitor Belfort? Who knows if that guy is going to show up to fight, let alone have a match against him. It's really hard in the light heavyweight division to be in the position I'm in. I beat Chuck and then what do I do? Move up to heavyweight and kick Tank's ass? I'm just sitting in a funny position right now and actually for once, I'm not sitting back and worrying about a fight. I have a career to work on now. I have a lot of things I'm working on. A lot of good people help me out and believe in the dreams I'm having right now, so it's just a matter of time to see what I do next."
We'll be watching.
Oh yeah, there's one more thing for Jacob Ortiz to know about his father:
Fact #7 - Tito Ortiz loves his family over everything else.
TITO ORTIZ ANF THE FACTS OF LIFE
Eight-month old Jacob Ortiz doesn't know it yet, but he's got a tough daddy - maybe the baddest man on the mixed martial arts planet.
But for now, dad isn't Tito Ortiz, UFC light heavyweight champion; he's just that big guy who plays with him, hugs him and tucks him in at night. Because in only eight months of life, it's impossible to know the impact he's had on his father's life.
But Tito knows.
"I'm not fighting for myself anymore," Ortiz told MaxFighting. "I'm fighting for my son. I have to think about his future. I'm only going to be in mixed martial arts for the next 3-4 years so I have to take advantage of that time, and that's what's really making the decisions for me right now - my son. More than anything, it's all about him right now. I've never realized I could love someone as much as him and I want to make sure he doesn't have a life like I had it growing up. All that matters is my son and making it right for him."
Spoken like a true father, and unless you've stood in those same shoes, you wouldn't know what a child will do to change your outlook on life. What you thought was important really isn't anymore; bad days can be erased with a single smile on that little face; and if you thought you worked hard before, you work even harder with a mouth to feed.
A harder working Tito Ortiz is bad news for future opponents, but more on that later. If Jacob Ortiz is anything like his father, he will get on the Internet someday and read about his father, a man who is not only his own personal superhero, but superhero to scores of fight fans. Here are some facts about his father that he may not know.
Fact #1 - No one works harder than Tito Ortiz - no one
Anyone who has seen Ortiz train will not forget it anytime soon. Pushing himself past normal endurance limits, a typical training session with Ortiz includes blood, sweat, and a number of trips to the nearest garbage can for, well, you can figure it out. Ever since his loss to Frank Shamrock in 1999, Ortiz has made it clear that while he may someday lose in the Octagon, it won't be because he was outworked in training.
"I've got it down to a science for training where I know exactly when to taper off and when to push myself really hard," said Ortiz. "There are roller coasters when you're having a bad day, but you suck it up. One thing about fighting is that I can prepare for a fight two-three times a year. In that time, as soon as I'm done preparing for a fight, there's no doubt in my mind that I'm going to win."
Such physical torture takes its toll, and at the age of 28, it may be reaching the point where Ortiz is seeing the end of the road in the next few years. And each time he needs to re-dedicate himself physically and mentally to his chosen sport, it gets harder. It's natural.
"That's always happening, no matter what," admits Ortiz. "Especially with all the kinds of things that are coming up for me, doing the movie deals and all that. There are all other kinds of options to make money instead of beating up my body. I just got to have the drive to keep doing what I do when I train. I push my body for three months non-stop seven days a week and I try to do as much as possible."
The latest push was last November, when Ortiz helped bring in the best pay-per-view numbers since the UFC's early days in a three-round pummeling of Ken Shamrock in Las Vegas. Fresh off an ACL injury, Ortiz had the weight of the sport on his shoulders as he prepared to step into the cage at the MGM Grand. Nothing a little video game carnage won't cure.
"There was a lot of mental preparation, that's for sure," said Ortiz. "On the day of the fight I was sitting down with my friends and we were playing Halo on Xbox. I knew in my mind that I had everything physically in the right areas. I had all my cards dealt and I knew what cards to lay down when it was time to fight."
"Mind wise, as soon as I get in the arena, that's when it sets the tone of 'all right, now it's time to fight. Now it's time to get serious,'" continued Ortiz. "I put my running shoes on and do a light jog. I'm warming up, hitting pads, and then it comes to the point of 10-15 minutes before the fight and I always vomit and tears will come out of my eyes. I don't know what the reason is. Its just emotion. People see me fight and I fight like no other fighter in the UFC. I have so much emotion and so much aggression. I never stop moving. In my mind, it's just don't stop moving until the match is over and you'll have no problem with it. That's the whole idea. So when I step in there and you see the ferocity I go in there with, no one's gonna stop me. Whoever's standing on the other side of the Octagon, I have to go through that person because I'm fighting for my family, my fans, and that's what really matters."
Fact #2 - Tito Ortiz cares about the fans, no matter what some of them have to say about him
Visit any message board for any major professional sport (or even a niche sport such as boxing), and you will not see a Barry Bonds, Rich Gannon, Kobe Bryant, or Lennox Lewis conversing with their fans. It just doesn't happen. Tito Ortiz is the biggest star in mixed martial arts today, and yet he is a regular visitor to Internet message boards, and whether this is wise or not, it has endeared him to the folks who fork out the cash to see him and his peers fight.
"I love doing that, and that's part of my job," said Ortiz, who travels light, i.e. - no bodyguards or lackeys to keep the fans at bay. "I do this stuff for all the fans and I'm here to support them. I could be a role model but I don't want to be because I make mistakes just like every other human being. In my mind it's just more about being an inspiration for people. I've had so many E-mails, and I've talked to people in person who told me how much I've changed their lives. I show them how to train hard and be good people in their lives and they do that and become better people because of it. I have to do this for the fans because they pay so much to see my fights and hopefully I inspire them to be better people."
That spoils the fans too, though, and there are always the bad apples that spoil a good thing, like when some random poster wants to drop a dime on Ortiz for any number of reasons, from not fighting certain opponents to not wearing the right color shorts on fight night. And he does take it personally, though you'll never see him sweat it, because that's how a champion carries himself.
Fact #3 - Like NBA legend Larry Bird, Tito Ortiz makes those around him better
Mention the names Ricco Rodriguez, Quentin "Rampage" Jackson, and Phil Baroni to a mixed martial arts fan, and they will tell you that all three have risen to the top of the MMA game in the last 12 months. Every member of this trio has spent time training with Ortiz, and each member has emerged as an elite fighter. Ortiz couldn't be prouder.
"Ricco has done so much," said Ortiz. "You've seen the kid come from 300 pounds down to 235 pounds, with cartwheels, flying knees, kicks, punches - he's just a dominating person. "Rampage" is probably one of the toughest 205-pounders out there beside myself. He's gonna dominate Pride and be the champion in Pride. He has a lot of talent. He doesn't even understand how much talent he has. He's awesome. I still support everything he does and I'll be training with him this week to get him ready for Kevin Randleman. Phil Baroni is a kid who needs the right guidance. I think he's a champion in his own right and I believe he'll become middleweight champion. He's going to be taking people out because that's what he does. I think he's going to beat (Matt) Lindland. I have nothing against Lindland, I think he's a great fighter and he beat Phil the first time, but I think Baroni, if he's doing the right things, has the will to win."
Fact #4 - Tito Ortiz will do anything for a friend; Tank Abbott is not a friend.
On February 28, UFC icon Tank Abbott makes his return to the Octagon against Frank Mir. In his early days in the UFC, Ortiz was portrayed as not only a training partner of Abbott, but a protégé of sorts. It's been a long time since those days, and Ortiz' memories of Abbott, past and present are not fond ones. And though he respects the man's right to make a living, he believes Abbott's mere bar fighter image hurts the sport he's fought so hard to bring to the mainstream.
"If you watched "The Best Damn Sports Show", that shows all the mainstream fans how far the UFC has really come, and from what I saw, it looked like it hasn't come very far at all," said Ortiz. "I have no problem selling out the arenas. I don't know what other guys' problems are. And I'm paying the price for guys not selling out arenas. Hopefully Tank can bring it back, but at the same time, I don't think it's good for the sport. But that's in my eyes."
"Tank is not even a friend of mine," continues Ortiz. "I have nothing bad to say about the guy but when I tried to get back in the UFC a second time, he told Bob Meyrowitz that he would never fight again if he (Meyrowitz) let me fight in the UFC. Luckily Pedro Rizzo knocked his ass out because that's what opened the door for me. I thought he was a friend and he wasn't a friend. I lost complete respect for him, and I still don't have respect for him. And then when he comes out in UFC 40, during the biggest fight of my life and he's talking smack. Grow up. How old is he now?"
"It's going to be a good fight Friday night, and hopefully Frank Mir will come out on top. I think the kid has a big opportunity, and if he's training hard I think he has a chance of beating Tank. But at the same time, I don't want to waste my breath on Tank. I could care less about the guy. He's going to be here today and gone tomorrow the way I think about it. Who cares about Tank Abbott? What about Ricco Rodriguez? We're talking about the heavyweight champion of the world, the guy who dominated Randy Couture and made him look horrible. I looked at the "Best Damn Sports Show" and they didn't say anything about Ricco Rodriguez defending his world title or people like Caol Uno and BJ Penn. Yeah, Tank's name still sells but you've got to worry about the guys who are making the sport happen."
Fact #5 - Tito Ortiz is a fighter…now, not forever
As mentioned earlier, fatherhood changes you and matures you at the same time. Once a stone cold fighter willing to throw down wherever or whenever his name was called, Tito Ortiz now knows that there is a world outside of the fight game. And when he's finished as a fighter, he'll have to do something with his time and his life. But unlike many participants in combat sports, Ortiz is not waiting until retirement to think about such matters. He's taking care of that preparation now.
"I'm going to be undefeated for the next three years," said Ortiz. "But at the same time, I'm working on my acting. I have been for the last two and a half months."
Ortiz is in the upcoming DMX / Jet Li movie "Cradle to the Grave" but he admits that the part "was more just stuntman / fight action." He has loftier goals for himself as an aspiring thespian. "I want to get into acting where there are speaking lines and I can be other people. I'd love to do that and I've been working on it. I think this is my future. I'm not going to fight for the rest of my life. I see how a lot of boxers come up, make their money, go down, and they have to come back and fight to make money. I want to make sure that doesn't happen. Acting is something I need to sit down, study, and go over and over again, just like fighting. I'll just throw the same love I have for fighting into acting."
Fact #6 - Tito Ortiz will not be rushed into anything
You've read this far and you want to know about Ortiz' future in the Octagon, not the sound stage. Well, he's not talking yet, but like Ali, he shall return.
"Sometime this year," Ortiz said cryptically when asked about his return to fighting, and you can almost see the smirk on his face. "I just have to make sure my management does the right things and they make sure I do the right things. I have no problems with the next opponent that the UFC has for me to fight. It's just a matter of me stepping up and doing it, and making it happen. Before the summer, that's my plan."
And despite the fears of his die-hard supporters, don't expect to see Ortiz in against a stiff when he does return. And though he's not talking names, let's just assume his ol' buddy Chuck Liddell will be standing across the cage from him the next time we see him in action.
"Each time I want to test myself," said Ortiz, eschewing talk of a warm-up bout sandwiched between big media events such as fights vs Shamrock and Liddell. "I fought against Shamrock to test myself, plus I was just coming off my ACL injury so it was kind of a warmup fight for me. The big game was to fight Chuck Liddell. I never wanted to deal with it just because he was a friend, but in his mind, he wants a taste of what the belt tastes like, and he's gonna come up short. So it's just a matter of time. But at the same time, just doing the right things is what really matters."
If the fight against Liddell does come off, it will be a cap on an era in the UFC's short history under Zuffa. And Tito Ortiz will have a dilemma of who to fight next? But like any great champion, Ortiz is always a step ahead, and he's already pondering his fighting life after the biggest fight of his career.
"Heavyweight is an idea," admits Ortiz. "Hopefully that's where the bigger money will be, at least by the time I go up to heavyweight. But at the same time, I still have some more guys to fight. I've got Chuck of course, Vanderlei Silva, and then I don't know, do I make a lineup and go all the way back again to my first fight with Guy Mezger and work my way back? I don't know what to do. After Chuck, who is there? Vitor Belfort? Who knows if that guy is going to show up to fight, let alone have a match against him. It's really hard in the light heavyweight division to be in the position I'm in. I beat Chuck and then what do I do? Move up to heavyweight and kick Tank's ass? I'm just sitting in a funny position right now and actually for once, I'm not sitting back and worrying about a fight. I have a career to work on now. I have a lot of things I'm working on. A lot of good people help me out and believe in the dreams I'm having right now, so it's just a matter of time to see what I do next."
We'll be watching.
Oh yeah, there's one more thing for Jacob Ortiz to know about his father:
Fact #7 - Tito Ortiz loves his family over everything else.
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