VIDEO | Tito Ortiz says it’ll take a public apology to forgive Chael Sonnen
On Saturday night, in the main event of Bellator 170, Tito Ortiz put Chael Sonnen away with a first-round, rear-naked choke. In doing so, he put to bed months of pre-fight posturing and trash-talk – or so you would think.
Though Ortiz was able to hand Sonnen a pretty lopsided loss, he said he still hasn’t forgiven his foe for some of his pre-fight trash talk – particularly some words directed at his family. In order to truly put this beef to bed, Ortiz says he’ll need a public apology from Sonnen. He explained this feeling in a post-fight interview with FightHub TV, which you can watch at the top of this post.
“I didn’t say anything [to Sonnen] after the fight,” Ortiz said. “He came to my dressing room and said, ‘Good fight, it was an honor, da da da’ and I go, ‘You’ve got to apologize to me in public.’ So we’re gonna see if he has enough balls to apologize to me in public.”
Ortiz went on to explain that, while he is no stranger to a good war of wards, he believes Sonnen violated the cardinal rules of pre-fight trash talk by involving family.
“I’m a kid who has a lot of respect. I believe in respect. Talking about another person’s family is something wrong to do and for what he did, that’s just the wrong thing to do. That’s always my three rules of s**t-talking: You don’t talk about a person’s family, you don’t talk about a person’s country, and you don’t lie about a person. He did all three of those things, and the big man upstairs took care of it.”
Finally, Tito Ortiz explained that, despite his massive win over Sonnen, he believes he still believes retirement is the right choice.
“I want to go out as my best, no matter what anyone says,” he said. “I don’t want to go away when people say, ‘Well, he should have left a long time ago.’ I want people to go, ‘He should stay here, he should still stay around.’ But I’m gonna be 42 on Monday. I’ve been in this business for 20 years. I’ve done everything I wanted to do. I’ve became a millionaire, I bought my dream home, I bought my dream car, I bought my dream boat, I’ve been able to give my kids their college tuition, all three of my boys, so I’ve done what I needed to do as a parent, as a man on this Earth and what’s the next thing for me to do is find a different career.”
What did you think of Tito Ortiz’s final fight? Sound off, PENN Nation!
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 1/23/2017.
