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TITO ORTIZ TO RETURN IN MAY
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Here is an interesting article from MMAWeekly.com
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
- By Jeff Cain - MMAWeekly.com
"The
Huntington Beach Bad Boy," Tito Ortiz, competed only one time in 2007
in a draw against The Ultimate Fighter season 2 winner Rashad Evans at
UFC 73 in July. After some time away from fighting healing injuries and
filming The Apprentice, Ortiz expects to return to the octagon in May.
"My
last fight, before I fought Rashad (Evans), I wasn't 100%, and I just
wanted to make sure if I ever fight again I'm going to be 100%," Ortiz
told MMAWeekly. "The back injury that I sustained kind of hindered me
for fight time. Now it's a lot better, and May will be my next fight."
"I
spoke to Lorenzo (Fertitta), and it looks like in May," said the former
UFC light heavyweight champion . "They're going to wait until May, so
the next Cinco de Mayo weekend will be Tito Ortiz' next fight."
Ortiz'
career has been plagued with injuries. He needed surgery to repair torn
ligaments in his knee prior to his UFC 40 bout with Ken Shamrock in
2002. A nagging back injury has been a torn in his side suffered in
training for his UFC 44 match with Randy "The Natural" Couture in 2003.
He entered the octagon with a heavily wrapped knee against Forrest
Griffin at UFC 59 in 2006.
Ortiz said, "I really want to fight
at 100%. I'm making these guys look good when I'm not 100%. When I had
the draw with Rashad, I should have never did that. I should have beat
him, but it's all right. We'll do it again. I just want to make sure
I'm 100% before all of my fights so I don't let any of my fans down
when I lose or if I get a draw or something like that because I felt
like I let my fans down and myself down, and I don't want to let that
happen."
By the time May 2008 rolls around, ten months will have
passed since the draw with Evans. With his opponent not yet named,
Ortiz is focused on training and coming in 100% healthy.
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