Tito Ortiz landed a high profile client in female star Cris ‘Cyborg’ Santos after retiring from the sport and forming a management company, but in a new interview he admits that he’s got his work cut out for him lining up a fight with Ronda Rousey in the UFC.
This is the female fight everyone wants to see, but Rousey is playing hard ball, insisting she won’t fight ‘Cyborg’ at her natural 145lb weight class, and the UFC are standing by her on that even though the Brazilian fighter has been adamant that she can’t cut down to 135lbs.
Despite all the back-and-forth drama behind the scenes there’s always been a feeling that the fight would happen eventually, but Ortiz suggests that’s not necessarily the case.
“Working with Cyborg is challenging,” Ortiz said on yesterday’s edition of ‘The MMA Hour’ radio show. “The girl wants to fight, of course, but it’s just a question with her getting down to 145 [pounds]. She really feels it’s impossible. She walks around 160, 165, and to make 145 for all the years she’s done it, she’s like, ‘Tito, it really takes the last energy just for me to make 145. Now they want me to cut down to 135? It’s going to be really, really, almost impossible.’
“I battle back and forth with her, telling her how the UFC is going to take care of her, this and that. We’re still just … we’re at the end of the rope, I think. I’m not sure if she wants to do it. Me and my partner, George Prajin, we just sit there and we just try to talk to her over and over again”
Dana White echoed Otiz’s thoughts at the weekend when he was asked after ‘UFC On FOX 6’ whether the fight would happen and he stated his belief that ‘Cyborg’ doesn’t want to do it.
No doubt there’s still a few twists in this particular tale to come and I do still expect it to happen in the end…though I thought the same about Pacquiao Vs Mayweather and I’m still waiting for that one!
Check out more of Ortiz’s interview with Ariel Helwani below in which he confirms he isn’t planning on coming out of retirement.
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