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What about your
ethnic background?
Im half Mexican. My fathers parents are from Mexico City.
And my other half is from Hawaii and the Long Beach area. My mothers
father was born in Long Beach and my mothers mother was born in
Hawaii.
Your background
as a fighter is in wrestling. How did you become involved in wrestling?
When I came back to Huntington Beach I went to Huntington Beach High.
I started wrestling and I excelled. From there I started believing in
myself. I then went to Golden West College. Then I took a year off and
was in and out of jobs, just doing side work like moving and carpentry.
About that time I was partying with some wrong people again. Thats
when I looked at myself in the mirror and I thought, What the hell
am I doing with myself? I knew I had a bright future if I would
just stop partying and doing the same stupid stuff. At that time I bumped
into a coach from Golden West. He said, Tito, what are you doing
with yourself these days? I told him, Nothing, just working
job to job. He said, Why dont you come in and start
wrestling? So I went back to Golden West Junior College and I started
wrestling. I won the state two years in a row. I was undefeated and I
started training with a guy by the name of Tank Abbott. Hes from
Huntington Beach and he trained for the UFC. He just needed a big kid
to wrestle with. I was a three-time state champion in California so I
started working with him. I started getting better and better with jiu-jitsu
and boxing, and I helped him with his wrestling. My first UFC fight was
in 1997. I stopped my guy, Wes Albritton, in 21 seconds. I won that match
and then I ended up in the finals where I lost a controversial match to
Guy Mezger
I was only six months into training in MMA (mixed martial
arts). I was still a young kid, but it seemed like the more I learned
the better I got, and the better I liked it. At that time everything just
seemed to snowball.
What was the biggest
challenge for you, as someone who was strictly a wrestler, in becoming
a skilled MMA fighter?
It wasnt really that much of a difference. The only thing was
to make sure I keep my head straight. Thats all that mattered. It
seemed that if I dedicated myself to the sport as well as I had to wrestling,
Id do pretty well. In the last five years Ive gotten so good,
I mean Ive been the champion for the last three years. It took me
a year and a half to get the championship, and it seemed like I just learned
quicker than anybody else ever did. It seemed that the harder I worked
at it, the better I became at it. I guess Im kind of like a freak.
Im a perfectionist and try to perfect everything I do, although
Im still a long ways from it. But Ive been the champion for
the last three and a half years so I guess Im doing something right.
If someone who
doesnt know the first thing about fighting were to ask you, I
dont want to end up getting beat up in front of my girlfriend one
day. Which fighting style would you recommend they learn first?
It would have to be jiu-jitsu. With jiu-jitsu you can subdue a person
within thirty seconds. You can take a person down, actually choke him
out or put him in submission. You can do it in a quick manner and not
hurt anybody by throwing punches or hurt yourself by doing it. I think
that is the greatest martial art you can probably learn because youre
not using any strikes and youre holding a guy down with a move he
probably hasnt even seen before. I myself have choked men on the
street within ten to fifteen seconds and it really becomes a martial art;
my hands are deadly weapons. But I respect every human being walking on
the street. I never try to cause fights. I really respect people a whole
bunch, so I think thats what makes me the champion and who I am
today.
A lot of people
in the general public dont appreciate the abilities and versatility
of MMA fighters? What would you say to those people to explain what makes
your fighting abilities so special.
I would say watch an Ultimate Fighting Championship; watch a couple
of them. See the martial arts that we have to learn to compete in the
Octagon. Its not a street fight like it was before. In the beginning
UFC was, as they called it, the bloodiest fights youve ever
seen, because they didnt use gloves. But this sport has gone
through an evolution. Weve done in the last ten years what boxing
took 100 years to do, and its just because the guys are getting
so technical. You have to be really good at grapplingwhich is jiu-jitsu
and wrestlingand you have to be really good at strikingwhich
is professional boxing and professional kickboxing (including muay thai
and kickboxing where you use elbows and knees). Add all of it together
and of course cardio and weightlifting. I train seven days a week, eight
hours a day. Cardio is two hours of my workout. Its really a hard
workout, so when people get to see UFC, when they see how the guys compete
and what level they compete at thats when they get educated on the
sport itself.
Put it into perspective
for people. Isnt it true that if you and someone like Roy Jones,
Jr. got into a fight you would destroy him?
He wouldnt last thirty seconds
maybe hed run for
thirty seconds. I am dead serious. Someone like Mike Tyson would last
maybe two, three minutes in the octagon with me. But dont get me
wrong. Mike Tyson, if I stepped into a ring with him with gloves on, it
wouldnt last a roundwell maybe two rounds
but it would
be the same thing as me trying to go into his sport, as him trying to
come into my sport. It would be over really, really quick. So Lennox Lewis
for instance, that guy would last maybe a minute to two because he could
take it on his back, but the last time I looked boxing is not something
you do from your back.
But what you guys
do more closely resembles a true fight.
Yes, exactly.
Your style is primarily
submission fighting. Describe it for our readers who may not be familiar
with MMA styles and techniques.
Submission fighting is a combination of everything together. I do
kickboxing, which is regular muay thai kickboxingwhere you use elbows,
knees, and kicksand western boxingwhere you use strictly punchesbut
I try to add everything together. And then I use my wrestling of course
where I add the punches to set up the take down
thats where
wrestling comes in. Now the jiu-jitsu side comes in because I watch the
offense of my opponent. Hell use jiu-jitsu because hell be
on his back most of the time or trying to set up arm locks and stuff like
that from his back. At that time I use the ground-and-pound. For people
who dont know what ground-and-pound is, its taking a person
down when hes in his guard
and I try to punch him to the body
to the head
thats how I defeat most of the guys I fight.
Whats the
biggest difference between someone whos just a street fighter and
someone who has more classical training such as yourself?
I guess it goes down to the cardio, and just being the best I can
possibly be at what I do. Street fighters
yeah they can be tough,
they can throw punches like a boxer, probably, but no further than that.
We have the jiu-jitsu, the kicks, and the knees, the cardio and just the
game plan that we use. Because like I said, when I do this seven days
a week, eight hours a day, its programmed into my mind. So its
like Im a fighting machine pretty much. A regular person off the
street doesnt fight like that, they are not trained to do that.
I am a trained fighter. This is something Ive been working on the
last five years. This is my life.
Apart from you,
who do you consider the baddest mofo out there?
That is really hard to say
Id say Ricco Rodriguez. Him
and I are pretty damn even.
He gets the better of me sometimes and I get the better of him sometimes,
but I guess thats why were champions.
When will we see
you in the ring again and against whom will you be fighting?
The next time you probably see me in the ring again will be in June,
towards the end of June. Ill be in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand. My
next opponent will be Chuck Liddell. Hes the number one contender.
A lot of people
are looking forward to that fight. What should they expect?
Its going to be a long, grueling fight. Itll be a five
rounder. Chuck Liddell says hes going to knock me out, but he has
another thing coming. Its going to be a really tough fight. Chuck
and I train together. We trained together when we first started this sport.
He wants to know what the belt tastes like. I think he is going to come
up short. Look for a brutal fight. Its going to be good man. Its
probably going to be the best fight in UFC history.
Do some pendejos
ever try to pick a fight with you out in public?
Oh, all the time
although not as much anymore. As Ive fought
more and people have gotten to see my fights more they understand what
I do and they respect that a whole bunch. Most of the time when people
do theyre drunk and I can persuade them by the way I talk to them.
I talk circles around them and before the night is over they end up buying
me a drink. And that is pretty much how it always is. Im a cool
guy man. I dont go out there trying to start fights. Usually when
fights start is when somebody says something to somebody and they want
to retaliate. Im not the kind of person to retaliate.
But have there been times when you were forced to retaliate?
The last time I touched somebody I choked him out in about a minute
in a half. He hit my friend in the head with a bottle. He tried to come
at me with the bottle. I ducked it and I snapped him down into the ground
and I got him in a front guillotine
I choked him out unconscious.
His buddies hit me with a couple of bottles in the head. He was unconscious.
I let him go. I turned around and the guys were like, Dude, its
cool, its cool. Were sorry, were sorry.
I guess theres
always some idiot out there who thinks he has to prove how tough he is.
People that watch movies and see people like Jet Li and all those
guys, remember those are movies. What I do is reality. Theres nothing
fake about it. This is no WWF.
Youre not
nearly as ugly as a lot of your competition. Isnt being better looking
than your opponents a disadvantage because you cant intimidate them
with your scary face?
Its not the fact that I dont have a scary face, its
my presence when I walk in the Octagon. If anybody has seen Tito Ortiz
walk in the Octagon, they would say holy shit. I make guys
quiver when I walk into the Octagon. If you are live at the UFC I guarantee
you that you will get chills when I walk in the Octagon and its
time to fight, because I come at it with so much ferocity and so much
force. Its not the presence of a face, but the presence of body
in there. People really see the difference from the Tito Ortiz outside
the Octagon and Tito Ortiz inside the Octagon. And anybody that has ever
fought me, I guarantee you they would say that.
So its like
you transform yourself.
When the lights turn on its time to compete and its time
to show everything I worked the last three months for. It usually shows
up really well, like it did in my last fight when I fought Ken Shamrock.
It took me three rounds to stop him. At the end of three rounds he said,
no more. Its the first time anybody has done that to
Ken Shamrock, the first time anybody has picked Ken Shamrock apart the
way I did. I just think its because of all the hard work and dedication
I put into this sport.
Youve talked
about a future in Hollywood, which youre already setting yourself
up for. Does knowing you have this to fall back on make you less hungry
than the guy who is solely focused on fighting?
Maybe not less hungry, but having a little less focus, yes it does.
But at the same time when it is fight time my focus is 110% on the fight
only. So as I have off time right now it is nice to work on the thing
that will prepare me for the future. I am working on my foundation of
what I really want to do in this whole scheme of life, and acting is the
grand goal I mean that is the pot luck right there. You do things the
right way and become a big actor
of course it takes a lot of work
and a lot of dedication to do that job too, and Im working hard
to train myself. I think that acting is just the next step up to fulfill
my whole belts of goals that I really want to achieve in life.
Some MMA purists
miss the days when guys would go at it to prove their superiority regardless
of weight. Whats your take on this?
We need to go through this evolution to make the sport better. Boxing
was like that when it first started. They would box with no gloves. As
the sport evolves, it gets better and better. You put more rules in it
and more and more weight classes. You start organizing it and that is
what the UFC is now. As for the people who want to live for the old rules
of the ultimate fighting championship, sorry, that is when the sport first
began and they should appreciate how far the sport has come already.
Who do you consider the greatest fighter of all time in any category?
No question about it, Muhammad Ali.
What words of advice
do you have for your Latino brothers out there?
Believe in your goals. Always try to set an example for other people
to better this world, because there are a lot of tragedies happening in
this world. Try to be good to people all around. So just help out. Be
really, really good people towards others, because if youre good
to one person that person will be good to another and hopefully that causes
a chain effect where everybody is cool to each other. Then you dont
have to worry about people killing each other. A lot of this happens throughout
the community and a lot of people dont do anything about it. Im
speaking about gangs and stuff like that. People need to keep straight.
We all need to live together and really make this a happy world. We can
make it happen. People need to help others, work in the communitythats
something I do a lot myself. I go to schools and help out with kids, because
thats what I believe in. Im not just about being a fighter.
I try to go the extra mile and use my fighting status as a vehicle to
do other things: help with kids, try to keep them out of gangs, and things
like that. Thats what really matters.
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