Tito Ortiz Held Choke After Tap Because He “Felt Like An Animal”

MMA legend Tito Ortiz ended his storied career in style by submitting Chael Sonnen in the main event (watch highlights here) of last night’s (Sat., January 21, 2017) Bellator 170 from The Forum in Inglewood, California.

Ortiz was able to calmly survive an early guillotine attempt from ‘The Bad Guy’ to mount the smaller Sonnen and take his back to look for a rear naked choke submission attempt of his own. It wasn’t fully around Sonnen’s neck, but the decorated former UFC light heavyweight champion cranked the hold until he had to tap out.

When he did, however, Ortiz caused some minor conroversy when he refused to release the hold on Sonnen after their trash talk got personal in the lead-up to the bout thanks to a few choice references to Ortiz’ ex-wife, porn superstar Jenna Jameson.

And what’s more, Ortiz admitted at the Bellator 170 post-fight press conference (transcribed by MMA Fighting) he held onto the hold a little longer because of the ill will he held towards Sonnen after the famous trash talker poked fun of a pre-fight monologue Ortiz told involving a lion. He was apologetic to the commission, but towards Sonnen, Ortiz said he became that lion in the middle of the fight:

“When he was tapping, I thought he was trying to grab my hands, but I kind of held on to it because I have ill will towards him. But that’s just me, when someone talks about my family, when someone talks about my character, I have bad will towards the person. And I’ve never done that before, but it was just something in my mind saying, if I let go and they stop it and restart it again, I couldn’t let that happen.

“I apologize to the athletic commission for holding on to it a little longer, but I did hold on to it longer. I just had that ill will, I felt like an animal, I felt like a lion, and this lion roared how I said I was going to. This was my fight, no matter what, this is what I was going to do.”

Despite the admitted trangression, Sonnen didn’t seem upset by what had happened, accepting his loss and moving on:

“I tapped and he didn’t let go. I’m not upset about it. I don’t have any ill feelings towards him. But yes did he hold the choke after I tapped? Sure.”

Ortiz further discussed his win and holding onto the choke a bit longer in a post-fight interview with ESPN’s Brett Okamoto courtesy of Fancy Combat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj7QWC3iQdE