In a rematch between two of the most popular fighters in the history of mixed martial arts, Forrest Griffin defeated Tito Ortiz by split decision in a hard-fought battle Saturday night at UFC 106.
Just over a minute into the first round, Ortiz landed a takedown and got on top of Griffin, landing punches from inside his guard just as he did early in their epic battle at UFC 59 in 2006, which Ortiz won in a controversial split decision. But Griffin showed that he's improved as a fighter since then, breaking free and getting back to his feet, and landing more effective strikes than Ortiz on his feet.
In the second round, Ortiz again took Griffin down in the early going and landed punches and elbows from inside Griffin's guard. But Griffin, again, got back to his feet, where he used kicks effectively, including kicking Ortiz's mouthpiece right out of his mouth midway through the round. It was late in the second round when Ortiz took Griffin down and landed several elbows to Griffin's face, bloodying him badly. They had a back-and-forth battle on the ground that continued until the bell.
The third round opened with Griffin coming out charging hard, throwing kicks and punches that backed Ortiz up against the cage, and Griffin's striking was much more effective than Ortiz's. At the three-minute mark of the third round, Ortiz shot for a takedown, but Griffin stuffed it. After that it was clear that Griffin was going to control the round, and that's what he did, landing punches and kicks that Ortiz simply had no answer for.
Warning: Video below contains explicit language.
The judges scored the fight 29-28 for Ortiz, 30-27 for Griffin and 29-28 for Griffin. The split decision was a surprise; it's hard to see how any judge would score the fight for Ortiz.
"It feels great, man," Griffin said afterward. "Tito was a great fight for me to come back. I think we're going to have to do a third. It's one and one now. ... We'll do it again."
It was Ortiz's first fight since May of 2008, when he lost to Lyoto Machida. Since then Ortiz has gone through back surgery and a contract dispute with UFC President Dana White, but now Ortiz is back in the Octagon. Ortiz appeared to be in good shape, but any athlete is going to have trouble after such a long layoff, and Ortiz was slower than the Tito of old. Ortiz, whose record falls to 15-7-1, is still a big draw for the UFC, but he's not an elite MMA fighter.
Ortiz said afterward that he was suffering from a neck injury and from a cracked skull, and the fans booed what sounded like Ortiz making excuses. That led Griffin to admonish the crowd to show respect to Ortiz, and when Ortiz asked the fans, "Were you guys satisfied with the show?" they cheered.
But it was Griffin who got most of the cheers as he rebounded from his back-to-back losses to Rashad Evans and Anderson Silva. Griffin is a Top 10 light heavyweight and might get a light heavyweight title shot in 2010. He improved his record to 17-6, and he earned his place near the top of the light heavyweight division on Saturday night. He put on a good show.
Comments (Page 1 of 2)
lol tito ortiz is a joke
lol...I wanted to be the first person to post that.
What I don't understand is this ... how is it that during the UFC 106 hype show Tito was saying he is finally injury free and his back is fine etc yet after the fight he said he couldn't train when we saw him squatting and he even said on the Jim Rome show that he was able to do wrestling, jujitsu, boxing etc ... It's kind of confusing. Was Tito making excuses after the fight or was he just building himself up before the fight? It was pretty obvious that Tito was gassed in round 3 which brings me to this question: How in the EFF did one judge score it 30-27 Ortiz? He landed nothing in Rd 3 ... judging in MMA sucks even though I thought they got this one right. Forrest won that fight in my opinion. Tito needs to work on his cardio because he had nothing after about 1.5 rounds. Griffin looked super sloppy but he always fights that way. I was impressed with his GnP defense more than anything and his ability to scramble up.
Johnny...the 30-27 score went to forest...
oh ok that makes sense. I must have gotten then confused.
OK...Ready for 2 outa 3
I had tito winning round 1 and 2
Then I'm glad you're not a judge there are enough Glenn Trowbridge's in MMA judging.
I thought rounds 1 & 2 were really close. I could have seen it go either way but I gave rounds 1 & 3 to Griffin and round 2 to Ortiz.
kinda funny how it ended huh split decision,just the way their first bout ended lolx lolx.!!!!
The best fight of the night had to be the Sodollah fight. It was like he was toying with his opponent, beating the crap out of him while making sure that he didn't knock the guy out or end the fight early. It was a clinic in how to beat the hell out of someone! Great fight!!! LOL!!!
Yeah except Baroni sucks and all that fight really showed is that Sadollah has no finishing power or killer instinct. Baroni has no cardio what-so-ever and in all honesty the guy is a freaking bum.
yeah right. figure it out. they hired baroni to be a human punching bag so sadollah could get an easy win and use his "THE TUF 7 WINNER" label to put him in contention. baroni was the same old gassed out fighter he's always been. i actually wish the best for amir and hope he keeps winning, but don't make this out to be a HUGE!! win for him.
Utah Fried Chicken
oh yeah lmfao just like how anderson silva was toying with forrest griffin,just befor silva knocked him out then forrest runs out of the ring like a pussy,plus silva didnt even hit griffin that hard either that is what was funny about it.lmao lolx.!!!!!
huh?
No shame in getting knocked out by Silva the guy is arguably the bst fighter in all of MMA.
I thought the big winner of the night was Noguiera ... dude looks to be right in the LHW title mix with that win. Koscheck was also really impressive in his win.
rogerio looked great. so what's next dana?? you gonna tell us the noguiera's are gonna fight eachother??
fantastic night of fights!
best card since ufc 100.
i thought tonight would suck and was pleasantly surprised. every fight was dramatic and every fighter put their hearts on the line.
it is a personal preference of mine that i enjoy fights when they are dramatic and not so predictable.
i went to a bar and watched the fights i bought 3 beers and a fish sandwich, the tab was $23 and i left a $14 tip it was worth every penny.
kudos to every fighter on the card....
you may not like baroni, as i don't, but the dude is a tough sob.
little nog showed he is still a force.
thiago/volkmann great fight. i'm not a thiago fan but it still was a great fight.
koscheck was unfriggin believable, i have no idea how he managed to beat johnson even though i witnessed it with my own eyes. johnson is an absolute monster.
it was damn obvious tito was fighting with something wrong with his left eye, fans that boo are complete jack-offs and deserve to be flipped off. i love forrest griffin. he got his arse totally kicked by silva and doesn't try to hide that fact, to me, he is a real man.
i love his heart and his honesty. i hope he keeps winning and would love to see him win the title again. he is definately one of my favorites.
tito is not one of my favorites, but for some reason i still like him.
tonights card was better than the last 5 combined.
fighters that all brung it tonight, unlike machida/rua that danced for 5 boring rounds.
that may have been a championship fight, but it still sucked.
kudos to all the fighters, they made tonight a great night, a night that before hand looked really lame on paper.
to all the ufc haters that blindly hate and think tonight sucked....go piss in your own cheerios.
See I find it ironic that you said the SF card sucked when all those fights were competitive and dramatic. I bought the card last night against my better judgement and I thought it was mediocre at best. The main event was pretty good but both guys fought sloppy as hell and it wasn't a good indicator of what MMA has to offer in my opinion. Like I said I thought it was a mediocre card but it turned out to be better than I thought it'd be. Koscheck impressed me but I thought he was a total punk last night ... pretending to be hit in the eye when he wasn't then poking Johnson in his eye twice. Thats a coward in my opinion but I still give him credit for the win. The only problem with Rogerio Noguiera being a force is that he won't fight Machida or Silva either. We'll have an entire top portion of the top 10 LHW fighters that won't fight each other.
I thought UFC 100 was a letdown especially for all the hype leading up to it where Dana had went on record as saying all titles would be on the line. I think the best card I've seen this year was either SF Fedor vs Rogers or the UFC Couture vs Noguiera event. I'm hopeful the December 12th card with Penn vs Sanchez turns out to be good as well.
I actually enjoyed the fights!Forrest looked pretty good, sloppy but thats his style he did what he needed to do.His next fight better not be against Tito again.Let Griffen fight B.Vera and let Tito Ortiz fight Baby Nogueira!If they both lose and probaby will they show Ortiz vs Griffen 3 for free on spike!works for me that the least the UFC can do for us! Just My Opinion