Tito Ortiz: “…it’s called management,”

Tito Ortizby Ben Fowlkes |source: MMAJunkie.com

Tito Ortiz has a plan. It’s detailed and forward-thinking and not terribly flexible, but still, it’s a plan. He seems pretty sure that it’s a good one. UFC President Dana White seems to feel differently, but what else is new?

“I made so many mistakes with my career,” Ortiz told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) backstage at this past weekend’s UFC 157 event in Anaheim, Calif. “I’m not going to make the same mistakes with my clients.”

By clients, of course, he means Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos, the former Strikeforce women’s 145-pound champion who Ortiz represents as part of his foray into the world of fighter management. And by mistakes, he means signing a contract where there’s “no future,” which is what he claimed the UFC offered his fighter recently. So he turned it down, he said. He opted to sign her to a three-fight deal in Invicta FC instead – a decision White could only shake his head at when quizzed about it at a fan Q&A a day earlier.

“The reason I thought it was a better idea is because it’s called management,” Ortiz declared on Saturday night, standing inside the Honda Center’s cramped media room with a handful of reporters gathered around him.”Our deal right now is to fight the No. 2 contender at 145 pounds, who she’s fighting, and then she’ll fight for the [Invicta] world title,” he said. “She wins the world title, and after she wins the title, she’ll defend it once. After she defends it once, let’s get New Year’s Eve, Ronda Rousey vs. Cris ‘Cyborg’ at 140 pounds. Champ vs. champ. Let’s forget about the title. Throw away the title. Let’s get one of the biggest pay-per-views in the history of mixed martial arts and history of women’s MMA.”