Tito Ortiz explains his side of the bizarre Bellator brawl

Ten days ago, former UFC light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz stepped into the Bellator cage with fellow MMA veteran Stephan Bonnar to announce their November 15 fight in San Diego, California. What happened during the “promotion” of their upcoming bout could only be described as bizarre and included the unveiling of a masked man. “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” recently spoke with MMAFighting’s Dave Doyle, where he discussed both the bizarre brawl, as well as what he plans to do to Stephan Bonnar at Bellator 131:

“It’s a double-edged sword,” stated Tito. “It helped, and it didn’t help. Helped to sell the fight, 10 days after we’re still talking about it. A lot of fans, maybe they didn’t like it because of the pro wrestling side of it, I didn’t like it, The fact of him talking about my family, I didn’t like it. Like I said, it’s a double-edged sword.”

“The only thing I knew was that we were going to get in the cage, and we were going to get into a faceoff for the fight. Do a pre-fight thing and that was it. I’ve seen some guy with a mask was with him, and, I don’t know. It just kind of caught me off guard I was like ‘who’s this guy.’ Then I was like, OK, he must think I’m going to smack him or something. He’s got security with him.”

“He stepped into the cage. And he started talking and he started saying something about my family and he started talking about the fans and all of a sudden I just blinked and I’m seeing red.”

“He started talking smack saying I need money to pay for my family because my chick took all my money or my ex-chick took all my money. You don’t say s– like that, dude. Seriously. All the same, none of it was true for one. You’re saying lies about a person you don’t even know about. And it ticked me off.”

“[Bonnar] saying Dana [White] is going to release him to kick my ass, I was just like ‘excuse me? Who are you, dude? What fights have you won? You’re known worldwide for getting your ass kicked, and for him to say the things he said about me?” … then when I heard he was coming to Bellator, it was, OK, cool. How do I get this fight? What do I have to do to get this together?” And it got done, and he continued on.”.

“He needs as much ammo as possible, because that’s only way he’s going to win the argument side of it. He’s going to say as many lies as he can and keep talking the talk, because when it comes to Nov. 15, he has to get in the cage with me. It’s nobody else beside himself. No Gimp behind him, no training partners behind him, there’s nobody besides himself. He’s the one that’s going to stand in front of me when it comes to getting punched and kneed in the face. That’s what he’s in for. I’ll sit back and let him talk his talk, and get as much hype and notoriety and just talking.”

Tito Ortiz notched his first win in 3 years this past May, when he defeated current Bellator middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko in the first-round of their catchweight contest.

Can Ortiz punish Bonnar back into MMA retirement or will “The American Psycho” emerge victorious on November 15? Sound off Penn Nation!