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Are you buying or selling Tito Ortiz vs. Renato Babalu?

By Zach Arnold | July 29, 2008

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Any time you have headlines screaming ‘Pro fighters tasered, beaten in hotel room’, obviously your eyebrows raise up a little bit. One person is currently in a coma. Keep up-to-date on story developments at TKO Xtreme.

Steve Cofield has stirred things up by reporting on Affliction wanting to book Tito Ortiz vs. Renato Babalu for October.

  1. Sherdog: An interview with Ricardo Arona
  2. MMA Weekly: Jake Shields accepting all challengers, even at 185 pounds
  3. MMA Junkie: L.C. Davis to replace injured Cub Swanson at August 5th WEC event
  4. The Detroit Free Press: MMA is growing, but it won’t catch onto the mainstream
  5. The Boston Herald: Josh Grispi won’t be beaten
  6. The Springfield News Sun (OH): EXC not the same without Gary Shaw’s brashness
  7. Dave Meltzer (Yahoo Sports): Where the MMA business stands after big shows
  8. Mike Coughlin: My proposed changes to the Unified Rules of MMA

Topics: Affliction, Brazil, Canada, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 18 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

18 Responses to “Are you buying or selling Tito Ortiz vs. Renato Babalu?”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    October 2008… This could be the most important month in MMA History. Or at least one of the most important months.

    Both Affliction & EliteXC with do or die shows. Things have just gotten very interesting.

    By the summer of ’09, one of these companies will be out of business. That is my prediction. The other will be struggling along, but still in business.

    As for Ortiz, I assume he would want $1.5 Million to $2.0 Million for a fight. If a PPV costs $40, and Affliction gets half, that means for Ortiz to earn his money back, he needs to get 75k to 100k in PPV Buys. Can his name value due that without the UFC behind it? It’s really hard to say.

  2. dana says:

    I’ve been waiting for this fight for a while. It seemed like a natural under the UFC banner, but they were only interested in protecting Tito and saving him for a big pay-per-view pay offs. Ortiz vs. little-nog would be good, too.

  3. Kelvin says:

    Tito isn’t the PPV draw he once was…his PPV #’s from UFC 59, 61, 66, 73, and 84 are all skewed to hell…he was the headliner in ONE of those events. I don’t want to see Ortiz take Babalu down and lay on him for 3 rounds.

  4. Ultimo Santa says:

    Interesting point, 45. I do think Ortiz, if marketed properly, could bump the PPV buys by 100k.

    As a fan, Tito Ortiz vs. Renato Babalu is not overly exciting. Mostly because I can’t remember the last time I was actually excited watching an Ortiz fight.

    Fedor vs. Arlovski is an awesome match-up, and I can’t wait for that one. Aside from Barnett, who else could possibly have a chance to beat Fedor?

  5. Luke Thomas says:

    The WEC show is August 3rd, not August 5th.

  6. cyph says:

    Signing Tito Ortiz for whatever he’s asking is a bad deal. Ortiz is not worth 100k without the UFC name. If Affliction were a stock, I’d short it right now.

  7. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    I disagree with all of Coughlin’s proposed changes.

    I agree with the intent of the second one, but I think he’s wrong about which standard to prefer.

  8. zack says:

    Cyph…don’t you have better things to do than troll the comments section of a blog site?

  9. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    zack,

    I think he has a legitimate comment there. Affliction, based on their behavior previously, is going to massively overpay Tito Ortiz with the apparent assumption that some of UFC’s glow is going to rub off on them (with the exception of one early fight, all his events have been under UFC’s banner).

    Would you hand the guy 500 to 800k to fight for you? He’s a previous UFC belt-holder…but what has he done for you lately?

  10. The Citizen says:

    This is one fight I’m not sure who to root for. I can see how some might be interested in it, but I sell this one, and make people buy it. As a headliner — no, but as an added treat on the undercard — of course. This is the closest thing we are going to get to a Freak Show fight.

  11. cyph says:

    Zack,

    Pot, kettle, black?

  12. dragomort says:

    Update on the first topic from the fight network.

    http://www.thefightnetwork.com/news/mma/852/freedom_fight_promoter_expounds_on_postshow_attack

    Not sure what’s going on, as I’ve seen reports from guys getting broken bottles shoved into their eyes and in comas to everyone being pretty fine with just a few bruises.

  13. zack says:

    “zack,

    I think he has a legitimate comment there.”

    How about the comment on the other page about Arlovski having as much drawing power as Tito. Moron or troll?

  14. cyph says:

    If you disagree, then post why you disagree. Attacking other people’s opinion does not equal opinions of your own.

    If you want to call people morons, I suggest Sherdog.net.

  15. cyph says:

    Tito,

    Is that you?

  16. IceMuncher says:

    Are we talking about Tito right now, or Tito in his prime? Because if it’s the former, I think that’s a legitimate, and admittedly debatable, position.

  17. The Gaijin says:

    As far as I deciphered from his comment, he meant Tito wasn’t going to get “more”, as in cash, than Arlovski.

  18. DarceYou says:

    Tito who? Come on guys, nobody really cares about Tito, right? Of all fo the UFC rejects, he’s the worst.

    Tito is a puss! He couldn’t win a fight against a legitmate MMA fighter if his life dependeed on it.

    The ONLY reason he was ever relevant was in his drawing power vs. Liddel, and he got his ass kicked.

    The sad truth is that once Couture spanked him (literally), he became a nobody.

    The only thing interesting about Tito is jenna, and she treats him like a B!

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