Tito Ortiz, long one of UFC's most popular fighters, has reached an agreement with the upstart Affliction organization and will fight on its October 11 pay-per-view show in Las Vegas, Steve Cofield is reporting.Ortiz's opponent will be Renato "Babalu" Sobral, a former UFC fighter who won his match on this month's Affliction: Banned undercard. Babalu called out Ortiz after winning his Affliction fight, which Ortiz attended, and this match-up has been expected since then.
Ortiz is still one of the most popular athletes in mixed martial arts, but he has appeared of late to be past his prime: In his last three fights he has losses to Chuck Liddell and Lyoto Machida sandwiching a draw against Rashad Evans. However, Ortiz does have a win on his record over UFC light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin, which Affliction will no doubt mention a few times in the run-up to the October 11 show.
Babalu is a very experienced fighter with a 30-7 record. He was kicked out of UFC after he failed to let go of an anaconda choke after opponent David Heath had tapped out.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-29-2008 @ 9:17AM
steven lester said...
if you saw the tito and forrest fight you would disagree with the results, it was a contraversal win , not an out right win, past his prime, the new shamrock.....
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7-29-2008 @ 11:03AM
Rory said...
Yeah, Tito should be the underdog but I think he has a shot. Sobral hasn't exactly been a top tier guy recently but he would likely still be in the UFC if not for the Heath incident.
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7-29-2008 @ 1:52PM
HAWK said...
BOTH MAY BE PASS THEIR PRIME BUT ORTIZ WINS THE FIGHT
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7-29-2008 @ 2:26PM
don said...
tito is one of the more popular fighters,but not in my book,he lost all my respect when he failed to show against dana white,i saw the forrest/titto fight and i had forrest up 2 rds to 1.tittos mouth has just ruined himself.
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7-29-2008 @ 2:24PM
don said...
kimbo,,please set a fight against this you tube big mouth dan quinn,quinn reminds me of a tito ortiz but w/o the talent,someone needs to break all his teeth and send the stevia wonder boy back the the sand box.
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7-31-2008 @ 9:16PM
Drew said...
Affliction may not have that second show or Fedor on the card. Dave Meltzer reported in the Wrestling Observer that he will ask fighters to take a paycut if they want to fight on the next show.
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