Tito Ortiz “Probably 212 Pounds” Days before Anderson Silva Bout
Tito Ortiz is just days away from making his highly-anticipated walk to the ring to fight Anderson Silva, but he has quite the fight on the scales leading up to the fight this weekend. Ortiz will be making his professional boxing debut after a long career in MMA which included a reign at the UFC light heavyweight champion.
Ortiz and Silva will battle in the ring at a catchweight of 195 pounds, despite Ortiz fighting a majority of his career at 205 pounds and Silva having a brief run at light heavyweight in the UFC. Despite his protests regarding the weight details, Ortiz agreed to the bout at Silva’s desired weight.
Ortiz will need to cut a substantial amount of weight to be able to fight against Silva at 195 pounds, as he detailed during a recent social media post.
“I gotta get down to 195. I’m probably in the 212 department, 211lbs, around that,” Ortiz said. “Feel great, though. Had a good day working with Jason Parillo and Jay Silva. We did some light sparring. I hope [Silva] is ready for a fight. I’m not coming there to collect a paycheck. I’m coming there to collect a win, get a W, take some names, kick some ass.”
Ortiz seems confident in being able to compete at a high level in his first appearance in the boxing ring, but he’ll more than likely need a brutal weight cut beforehand. After a brief run competing in Bellator, Ortiz retired from the sport before coming out of retirement to face Alberto El Patron at Combate Americas 51.
This will be Silva’s second boxing fight in 2021, after beating Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. earlier this year by split decision. He made the full-time transition to boxing after recently struggling in the UFC middleweight division.
It’ll be fascinating to watch how Ortiz is able to combat the challenges of weight cutting, especially during this latter stage of his athletic career.
What are your thoughts on Tito Ortiz’s expected brutal weight cut?
