Chael Sonnen Claims Tito Ortiz Verbally Tapped At Bellator 170
Last weekend, when Bellator MMA had to scramble to find a replacement fighter to fight Fedor Emelianenko at Bellator 172 after Matt Mitrione was forced to withdraw from his headlining bout, two names were thrown out by Bellator MMA President Scott Coker. Those two names were Chael Sonnen and Tito Ortiz. It was an unexpected turn of events considering Ortiz had retired from MMA a month ago after beating Sonnen at Bellator 170. Despite the fact that Ortiz wasn’t taken up on his offer, his willingness to end his retirement has had one notable effect, which is Sonnen calling him out again. During the February 23rd episode of his podcast, You’re Welcome!, Sonnen claimed that Ortiz’s win over him was suspect because Ortiz tapped out before Sonnen did. He also explained why he didn’t bring up Ortiz taping earlier.
“The score is one-one between Tito and I, and you always go into a rubber match. Everyone knows that. The only reason I kept my mouth shut at the Tito fight – look, Tito tapped in that fight. I knew Tito tapped when he tapped. I heard Tito verbally tap and I’ve never said a word about it, privately to Tito at the press conference or to you guys. I never said anything, and the reason is, first off, when you lose, you just take your loss. It’s not a tap if the referee doesn’t call it a tap so therefore, Tito didn’t tap. I thought he tapped, and I let a move go. He verbally tapped, and I never said anything about it, and the reason was, he quit the sport five seconds later. He quit the sport five seconds after I tapped and he quit the sport a minute and five seconds after he tapped. There was no rematch. There was nothing to build and no reason to tell the real story. He then make-believes that he’s gonna come back for Fedor. Now, Tito was nowhere near the Fedor fight. He didn’t offer his services, he had nothing to do with it, but the bottom line was, he then took himself out of retirement by pretending that he offered to fight Fedor, which he did not do. If Tito ever wanted to come back and play, I’ll tell the whole story of what happened in that fight.”
With both men holding a win over each other, Sonnen won in a wrestling match back in their younger days while Ortiz won in their MMA bout at Bellator 172, Sonnen is looking for a third match despite Ortiz claiming that he is retired. According to Sonnen, the third time would be more like the first bout than the second.
“And yeah, we are one apiece. I never got going. That guy is easy to work for me. I would put that guy away in less than two minutes. It would be a completely different fight. It bothers me. It bothers me to come out here and say that I’d clean a guy up in two minutes that just tapped me out. I realize how insane that sounds, but the guy was gone.”
Sonnen stated that Ortiz knows he tapped and wanted to make clear that he doesn’t blame Ortiz for doing so and that he has done the same thing.
“I would’ve taken it to my grave. It was between Tito and I. He gave me a look after the fight. Tito, we’re good man. I tapped fair and square. The ref called my tap, he didn’t call your tap, we’re good. You think I’ve never ran a tap back before? Sure I have. You’re in there, you do anything you can. I had absolutely no problem with it. Tito’s the worst fighter in the sport. We were fighting for title. I took his title. I am now the worst fighter in the sport. Whoever I fight next, if I win that fight, he then becomes the worst fighter because I’ve officially got the crown, and that’s tough.
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