Tito Ortiz has a plan. It's detailed and forward-thinking and not terribly flexible, but still, it's a plan. He seems pretty sure that it's a good one. UFC President Dana White seems to feel differently, but what else is new?
"I made so many mistakes with my career," Ortiz told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) backstage at this past weekend's UFC 157 event in Anaheim, Calif. "I'm not going to make the same mistakes with my clients."
"The reaction tonight, it was bigger than any fight the men's 135 [pounders] have done," Ortiz said at one point while praising Ronda Rousey's main event victory over Liz Carmouche.
"Our deal right now is to fight the No. 2 contender at 145 pounds, who she's fighting, and then she'll fight for the [Invicta] world title," he said. "She wins the world title, and after she wins the title, she'll defend it once. After she defends it once, let's get New Year's Eve, Ronda Rousey vs. Cris 'Cyborg' at 140 pounds. Champ vs. champ. Let's forget about the title. Throw away the title. Let's get one of the biggest pay-per-views in the history of mixed martial arts and history of women's MMA."
See? It's simple. What could go wrong, except about a half-dozen different things.
So Cyborg needs to win her next 3 fights, and Rousey also needs to stay without a loss during that time. Then, assuming that doesn't go wrong, two current champions will fight at a catch weight (not sure that's ever happened before in MMA), and one champ will have a permanent drop in her stock without a new belt to show for it. Either Rousey will be seen as the inferior woman, or Cyborg will, and the mystique surrounding one of them will be gone, and with it, potentially part of their drawing power going forward.
As opposed to just doing the fight at 135, having a title on the line, and having the built in excuse of being too big for the weight class and terribly drained if his client loses.
Tito, I don't think this is a good plan. But what do I know, I'm just a random guy on a forum.
Tito Ortiz has a plan. It's detailed and forward-thinking and not terribly flexible, but still, it's a plan. He seems pretty sure that it's a good one. UFC President Dana White seems to feel differently, but what else is new?
"I made so many mistakes with my career," Ortiz told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) backstage at this past weekend's UFC 157 event in Anaheim, Calif. "I'm not going to make the same mistakes with my clients."
"The reaction tonight, it was bigger than any fight the men's 135 [pounders] have done," Ortiz said at one point while praising Ronda Rousey's main event victory over Liz Carmouche.
"Our deal right now is to fight the No. 2 contender at 145 pounds, who she's fighting, and then she'll fight for the [Invicta] world title," he said. "She wins the world title, and after she wins the title, she'll defend it once. After she defends it once, let's get New Year's Eve, Ronda Rousey vs. Cris 'Cyborg' at 140 pounds. Champ vs. champ. Let's forget about the title. Throw away the title. Let's get one of the biggest pay-per-views in the history of mixed martial arts and history of women's MMA."
See? It's simple. What could go wrong, except about a half-dozen different things.
Tito. Noone gives a shit about invicta at least in terms of mainstream coverage. It's much lesser known than strikeforce. So by downgrading the org u seem to think u are raising cyborgs stock?
So Cyborg needs to win her next 3 fights, and Rousey also needs to stay without a loss during that time. Then, assuming that doesn't go wrong, two current champions will fight at a catch weight (not sure that's ever happened before in MMA), and one champ will have a permanent drop in her stock without a new belt to show for it. Either Rousey will be seen as the inferior woman, or Cyborg will, and the mystique surrounding one of them will be gone, and with it, potentially part of their drawing power going forward.
As opposed to just doing the fight at 135, having a title on the line, and having the built in excuse of being too big for the weight class and terribly drained if his client loses.
Tito, I don't think this is a good plan. But what do I know, I'm just a random guy on a forum.
The fight will NOT happen at 135. It just won't, Cyborg can't make the weight. So if you want a fight, it has to be at 140. And also, the loser will see their stock drop equally no matter what the weight. Having buil-in excuses does nothing to change that, save maybe for hardcore fans which, let's face it, make up a very small portion of the MMA fan base.
Makes sense. Ronda's a superstar, Tito doesn't want the fight to happen until Cyborg becomes relevant again because he doesn't want Ronda getting a bigger slice of the pie.
