His pay-per-view pull has taken a dramatic hit. His popularity and reputation as a top-level fighter have taken a dramatic hit. He's on his last legs of his MMA career to say nothing of his UFC contract. A second full season on The Ultimate Fighter did nothing to repair his broken image. And yet, Tito Ortiz has pulled out of his fight with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira at UFC Fight Night 24 due to a reported concussion in addition to having twenty-two stitches. UFC light heavyweight prospect Phil Davis has agreed to step in to face Nogueira.
Tito Ortiz Out Of Fight Against Antonio Rogerio Nogueira And No One Knows What’s Left For The Former Champion
Tito Ortiz has withdrawn from his fight at UFC Fight Night 24 with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira due to injury. He is being replaced by former NCAA Division I national champion Phil Davis. Is there anything left in MMA for the former UFC light heavyweight champion?
Tito has pulled out of fight night due to getting stitches. 8-0 Phil davis will be fighting lil nog now and is pumped for this fight!
Dana White
danawhite
22 stitches and a bad concussion sucks but I will heal and be better soon.
Tito Ortiz
titoortiz
Ortiz suffered a concussion and a cut that required 22 stitches several days ago, he said, adding that the injuries occurred when he and a left-handed fighter accidentally butted heads while simultaneously throwing right hands.
“We weren’t wearing head gear because we had bigger gloves on,” Ortiz said. “Bad luck. I was throwing up for about four or five days (afterward). I went to Vegas to get an MRI. ... There’s a little bit of damage to the frontal lobe of my forehead, but they said it’ll heal in 30 days to 45 days.”
State athletic commissions generally prohibit a fighter from competing for several weeks after concussions or serious lacerations.
The problem Ortiz faces is not that his injury is illegitimate. It’s that at 35, when he’s not losing fights in the UFC, he’s withdrawing from them before they ever happen. He is barely able to make it through a fight camp.
Ortiz has a noted history of complaining about injuries that impacted his performance post-fight, particularly after losses. Most recently, he claimed he had a fractured skull after his rematch loss to Forrest Griffin, an injury which Nevada State Athletic Commission director Keith Kizer was unable to verify.
Ortiz is struggling to fight off a reality where he has no relevance, but the quicksand is moving. He’a also so physically ground up from years at the MMA salt mines he’s apparently only willing to enter fights with near perfect health - a concept that he should know is both unrealistic and fatuous. Either you are capable of training and competing at this level or you are not. Waiting for the sweet spot of career turnarounds to find it’s way to you at 35, particularly after neck and back surgeries and multiple concussions, is the very definition of grasping at straws.
As for Davis, he’s been a late replacement before and succeeded, although the opponent had a radically different skill set. Still, he should handily win the takedown battle and be able to score sufficient points through ground and pound as well as modest position advancement. Davis will lose this fight against the superior boxer in Nogueira, but the Penn State alum hasn’t shown much of a willingness to stand with anyone in his short career. It seems highly unlikely he’d start with Nogueira in a fight he’s taking on late notice.
Who knows if Ortiz will return? And the better question is who will care when he does? He has been living his MMA career lately on borrowed time, all the while expending the vast resources he used to build his name in the first place. The injury may be very real, but so is the writing on the wall. We have very little evidence beyond Ortiz’s protestations he’s able to compete in elite MMA. Where the patience once wore thin, now it’s rubbed raw. Both figuratively and literally, Ortiz is letting the game pass him by. On the bright side, if there is such a thing in this circumstance, fewer and fewer spectators are even noticing.
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