Tito is trying to hold the axe over the UFC’s head

September 30, 2007 – 4:09 pm by fightlinker

A few days ago, TAGG Radio announced that Tito Ortiz would be fighting Dan Henderson at UFC78. So of course we knew that wasn’t going to happen. It was a nice dream though … Tito vs Rashad 2 has about as much appeal as porking Rosie O’Donnell up the butt. The New Jersey show is turning out to be as crappy as New Jersey itself, and Tito/Rashad as a main event would be the cherry on that particular shit sundae. So it would make logical sense for the UFC to put Tito in the octagon with a better opponent that could salvage the PPV.

Now it looks like Tito knows he’s the UFC’s saving grace on this card and is playing hardball on signing any fight:

Right now the expected main event for the show is Ortiz vs. Rashad Evans, but Ortiz is playing hardball when it comes to signing.

My bet is the UFC doesn’t want to pay Tito the money he gets for headlining a PPV … they’re probably trying to argue that he’s co-headlining the card with another non-title fight, which of course is bullshit.

While Tito/Rashad isn’t exactly going to set the world on fire, not having Tito Ortiz at the New Jersey show could be a pretty big disaster for the UFC. The next biggest fight is Karo Parisyan vs Hector Lombardo, which is Ultimate Fight Night caliber at best. On the other hand, the UFC has already set new lows for PPV card quality with UFC 72 and UFC 76. So perhaps they won’t really care that much if UFC78 is a stinker, so long as they get what they want for their mega-card on December 30th.

**UPDATE** I’m an idiot and said UFC73 was a terrible ppv … I liked UFC73 … I did not like UFC72, the Belfast show. Like Dana used to say, a PPV without a belt-defense is a bad PPV. And now they’re doing that once every few months. Boo-urns