Why veteran Tito Ortiz is still headlining … and why MMA fans still care

SAN DIEGO – On Saturday night, the name Tito Ortiz will top the marquee at the Valley View Casino Center, the venue formerly known as the San Diego Sports Arena.

The UFC Hall of Famer didn’t have an easy road getting back into the main-event spotlight.

There were six losses in his last seven UFC fights, a stretch in which he was competitive in every fight but rarely got the W, leading to his 2012 retirement. There was the litany of injuries and surgeries. There were the pleas from fans and media to stay retired. There is the endless stream of mockery from former boss Dana White, among others.

And yet, a few months shy of his 40th birthday, the former UFC light heavyweight champion remains a needle-mover.

Will Ortiz’s main-event bout against Stephan Bonnar at Bellator 131 go into the books as one of the greatest fights in the history of the sport? Highly unlikely. But Ortiz is in the anchor position for a fight that will be live on Spike TV, head-to-head with the UFC 180 pay-per-view card. Fans will have the choice between watching something without an extra charge (basic cable, of course, isn’t actually “free”), or shelling out $60 for the UFC’s offering.

What that says is a major television conglomerate still has faith in Ortiz’s drawing power, even when so many others don’t.

For his part, Ortiz pins the current state of his career as a matter of believing in himself, no matter what others have to say.

“You know, I think just everything is meant to happen,” Ortiz told Yahoo Sports on Wednesday. “Everything is in place for a reason. For me to be successful, if I work hard and I stay honest, good things happen to me. I worked hard and I stayed honest for a long time. A really, really long time. My whole career.”

This time around, Ortiz is motivated like few other times in a career that began at UFC 13 in 1997. Bonnar, seeking to maximize the impact of his return after a two-year absence, pretty much napalmed his bridge with Ortiz, surrounding himself with Ortiz’s former friends and training partners and taking potshots at Ortiz’s family life.

Bonnar withstood an avalanche of criticism for his approach, as many mixed martial arts purists have said it veers too much in the direction of pro wrestling for their liking.

While it takes two to tango in the art of pro wrestling-style hype, if Ortiz is a part of some grand conspiracy with Bonnar to build the fight, he’s done a solid job of hiding it. Never once has he cracked a smile about Bonnar’s barbs in the two months since his opponent started getting on his case.

“His talk has lit a fire under my ass like no one has ever done before,” Ortiz said. “You talk about my family, you talk about my fans that I gave 17 years of my life and injuries, everything I bounced back from. I’m in a happy place right now, and a happy Tito Ortiz is a dangerous Tito Ortiz.

“My son, he’s only 5 and he understands it. He said, ‘Daddy, are you going to let anyone talk to you like that?’ When I’m in the gym and I’m training, I think about that. When he talks about ‘poor people buy Punishment’ [Ortiz’s clothing line], I mean, seriously? Come on. Fans who, you don’t even know who they are, they gave time to be a part of my life. My fans are a family to me, that’s what it feels like. He’s going to be on the loose end of a good beating.”

Now, Ortiz is starting to sound like “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” of old, the fighter who would walk out for his fights with both U.S. and Mexican flags and would make grave-digging gestures after finishing a foe.

“I’m ready for all of it, the striking, I’m ready for it,” Ortiz said. “I’m not afraid of his strikes. When you look at his career, how many people has he knocked out? How many people has he hurt? That makes me that much more confident.”

That sort of talk is why, all these years later, nearly two decades after he started and two years after he thought he was through, Tito Ortiz still tops the bill. Even those who say they’re tired of this sideshow leading up to the bout, if they’re being honest with themselves, they know they’re probably going to flip the remote over from the UFC show to see how Ortiz does.

“This week, I kind of got that nervous feeling,” Ortiz said. “That anxiety has set in. That’s a good feeling. That lets me know I am ready. I was anxious to get in the cage and fight. The nerves are the feelings like, OK, let’s do this. Let’s get this done. When you don’t have the nerves, when you’re calm, that’s when bad things happen. I’ve got that feeling in the pit of my stomach and that’s a good thing.”

Follow Dave Doyle on Twitter @DaveDoyleMMA.