Tito Accepts, Comes In As Huge Underdog vs Evans At UFC 133
When Phil Davis withdrew from his scheduled UFC 133 fight with Rashad Evans, speculation all pointed towards former lightweight champion, Lyoto Machida. It won’t be Machida, as he simply wanted too much money to step in on late notice.
“We called Machida back,” UFC President, Dana White said, “and he said he wanted Anderson Silva money and I told him he hadn't accomplished anything yet like Anderson.
“It was the last thing on Earth that I expected because he's been terrorizing me about fighting as much as possible and that was his response; totally shocked me.
“It would have been more professional for Machida to say he couldn't do it because of short notice, but he didn't.”
If not Machida, then who is left? Middleweights Chris Leben and Chael Sonnen each offered to step up to the late notice challenge. Leben, no stranger to taking fight on short notice, fought twice in a two week period a year ago, while Sonnen has been sidelined for nearly a year and is anxious to get back into action. The UFC wasn’t interested in either tweeting, “Dana: Leben and Sonnen offered to take the fight. ‘Both those nuts texted me, I told them they weigh 185 pounds, thanks for texting.’”
The UFC in need of a replacement even contemplated veteran Vladimir Matyushenko, who may fit the bill as far as credentials are concerned, but would probably not cut it in terms of pay-per-view sales as a headline event.
“Our next plan was Vladimir Matyushenko,” explained White, “who's also on the card. His only loss in his last six fights is to Jon Jones. We wanted Rashad to get a fight and I think Vlad would have stepped up.”
Matyushenko didn’t need to step up, as Tito Ortiz, who had previously turned the fight down, decided to rise to the challenge. Fresh off his UFC 132 win over Ryan Bader, Ortiz seemed content passing up the opportunity only given three weeks notice and riding on his high horse having finally broken his losing streak.
White, thrilled with Ortiz’s acceptance explained the details.
“I had no inclination that Tito would reconsider,” said White. “He was never an option for me and then he called me and asked if I had someone for the fight. I asked him if he was interested and he said he'd talk to his guys and call me back tomorrow. He didn't say why he changed his mind, I'm just happy he did. I wanted to get off the phone as quickly as possible before he changed his mind again.
“Tito Ortiz did not ask for any more money. He accepted the deal in his contract. Tito stepped up. I saw a lot of the questions that the fans were asking, this was a hot topic about Tito. He didn't go for more money. He got the same exact deal that he has on his contract. There was a lot of talk about Tito after that last fight about how much he got paid. We told Tito we were going to cut him and he's been around for a long time. We didn't renegotiate his money and I thought it was going to be his last fight and he was going to lose to Bader and he surprised him.
Although White explained that Tito did not ask for more money, a thought in my mind was the risk of a loss to Evans might result in him being cut from the UFC. White said this is not the case.
“Tito stepped up and he won't be cut if he loses.”
In regards to Ortiz’s ranking having already beaten Bader, White says, “If Tito beats Rashad, he'll have beaten a top 10 guy in Bader and then the number one contender. He'd definitely be in the mix. I wouldn't say he'd be number one contender but he'd be top three.”
White admittingly said he expected Bader to win at UFC 132, and now apparently feels that Evans also has the tools to dismount Ortiz.
“I say Rashad is all the same things about Ryan Bader,” White said. “He's faster, a better wrestler and got quicker hands than Tito right now, but who knows what's going to happen.”
The UFC boss is not the only one thinking that Evans has the edge in this battle. Odds immediately opening almost as fast as the fight is announced have Evans a -500 favorite over Ortiz at +350, similar to the odds in his match against Bader.
I’m going to disagree with the odds makers and give Ortiz the nod in this one. Although I supported Bader at UFC 132, I’d lean for Ortiz in this one with even odds; +350 only makes it sweeter. People may forget that this match is a rematch from four years ago. The fight ended in a draw due to an Ortiz penalty for holding onto the fence; otherwise the fight ends in an Ortiz victory and neither fighter has shown me much to think this fight will be any different.
I’ve already heard the argument that Ortiz has negatively aged, and Evans had grown since their last fight. I’d debate both statements. Although it’s true that Ortiz is four years older, his conditioning that he entered into his fight with Bader less than two weeks ago was arguably the best conditioning he’s had in a long time; he was lean and fit, and although we didn’t have much time to gauge, he seemed to be quick on his feet during those two minutes with Bader. Evans has also added four years and is probably on the other side of his peak. He’s smaller than Ortiz, still fights a similar style as he had before, and has now shown that he can be beaten when he got knocked-out against Lyoto Machida at UFC 98.
It’s not often the odds-makers open these opportunities, in fact they’re getting more rare as the sport becomes more popular; this however, seems to be a nice opportunity to take advantage of a spot where one fighter has already proven he can stand with the other. Now if I can just parlay it a Stann upset win over Sonnen, then we’d be talking.
