Tito: Fighters put life on the line, should be partners

A trilogy fight between Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz is in the works, promoted by Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions. This would be strictly an MMA event, the beginning of Golden Boy MMA. However, the contracts are not signed all the way around. Ortiz appeared recently on Submission Radio and charged that ‘The Iceman’ won’t commit fully.

“I started working out for almost a month and a half. My body feels great, I’ve bounced back faster than I expected, which is great,” said Ortiz. “But I’m anxious. I’m just waiting on Chuck Liddell’s side to kind of sign the contract, get this done. So, it’s just a matter of time.

I think Chuck’s kind of holding out, trying to make more money out of it, which just doesn’t make sense because this deal is pretty much a cut and dry contract. We’re both partners. De La Hoya wants his 40 percent and me and Chuck Liddell get to split 30 percent. So that’s on complete revenue of the whole fight in general. And this is the whole thing that I’ve been waiting for for such a long time in mixed martial arts, to really make a difference, and we’re gonna do that with De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions.

De La Hoya sat down with me and all of his management and they said, ‘We really wanna do this, we really think that the fans deserve this.’ This is the 25th anniversary of the UFC, the UFC didn’t wanna do it, and it made sense to De La Hoya and he said, ‘Let’s do this.’ And when he talked about the promotion and us being part of the promotion with me and Chuck, it’s just a blessing in disguise. We’re able to make a big percentage of the revenue with pay-per-view, the gate, merchandising, sponsorship – something that no MMA event has ever done before, and we’re gonna make it happen.

“What would be the number that we’d be thinking about? I talked to some of the guys like Sean Shelby, some of the other promoters, and they said, ‘You guys have a possibility of doing some really great numbers because people don’t know what to expect.’ … So what’s the magic number? Is it over 500,000? Will we meet that million number that we did last time me and Chuck fought? You know, we did over 1.4 million Pay-Per-View buys. If we fall right in the middle of that, I would be happy. Chuck, of course, would be happy and of course De La Hoya would be like, ‘We have started a new game,’ and other fighters will be like, ‘How do I get a part of that? how do I get a piece of that? How do I get into that promotion?’ And talking to me would be the first step.

“Chuck Liddell says we’re not friends, you’re correct buddy, we’re not friends. I’m gonna kick your ass in the cage, plain and simple. It’s just one of those things, you lose respect for a person after he lies so much over and over and over. This is one thing I’ve learned through my trash talk through my career, is never lie, never talk about a person’s country, and never talk about a person’s family. And I’ve kept those things as clear as possible through my whole career. Chuck Liddell has done nothing but lied.

Let’s fight on our terms, not on the UFC’s terms, not on your terms when Dana and the UFC were against me, let’s do it where everything’s on my side now. Let’s do it where everything’s in my court and I’m able to push the buttons, not him or Dana. It’s nothing against Dana, I understand Chuck was his boy back in the day and Chuck never said anything against the UFC, he always just fought for pennies. At the end when we fought the last time, we did fight for millions, but prior to that, our first fight we only fought for 150,000 dollars, where they made over 40 million for the pay-per-view. What am I doing wrong that boxers keep doing? You see guys like Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor, McGregor made over a hundred million dollars for his boxing match. All of a sudden they’re cutting us in as partners, which is great, that’s the way it should be. We’re the ones getting in the cage and fighting and putting our lives on the line. And De La Hoya said exactly the same thing, ‘You guys are the fighters, you are the guys who should be getting the most of the revenue, and I wanna do this and make this happen for you guys’. So that’s when I was like, I’m on board, let’s do this.

I think he’s broke, I think he needs money, he needs to pay his bills, which is understandable. He doesn’t have that big income coming in from UFC by being an ambassador with UFC and he’s out on his own. He’s looking for a way to make a big dollar in a quick amount of time and this is the biggest fight he can make happen. I want it, he wants it, De La Hoya wants to promote it, the fans want to see it. There’s fans talking smack saying, ‘oh, we won’t watch that fight, but I guarantee you they’ll be tuning in, they’ll be buying the pay-per-view, they’ll be watching. So it’s just a matter of time that Chuck Liddell finally signs the contract and puts his mouth where his mind is.

“I’ve gone over in my head, over and over and over and over again. It’s just put the pressure on him, put the pressure on him and catch him within the second round with my hands. It’s either going to be a left hook or a right hand, one or the other.

It’s gonna happen. This fight is gonna happen. It’s just a matter of time. Chuck Liddell, come on, buddy, stop asking for pennies, man. You’re stepping over dollars, looking for pennies. Let’s sign this fight, let’s get it done so that we can give all the fans 25 years of UFC.

Ortiz said he hopes the fight takes place toward the end of October or on November, and mentioned the Staples Center in Los Angeles as an ideal location. He also said he doesn’t want to go head to head vs. a big UFC PPV, and hopes the comanies can work together.