Chael Sonnen made the claims regarding Ortiz’s supposed “verbal” tapping on the most recent episode of his You’re Welcome! podcast
The “American Gangster” also discussed the publicity surrounding Ortiz’s offer to step in for the injured Matt Mitrione in the cancelled fight against Fedor Emelianenko on the weekend. Sonnen appears to be gunning to get Ortiz back in the cage if these comments are anything to go by:
“The score is one-one between Tito and I and you always go into a rubber match. Everyone knows that. The only reason I kept my mouth shut at the Tito fight – look, Tito tapped in that fight. I knew Tito tapped when he tapped. I heard Tito verbally tap and I’ve never said a word about it, privately to Tito at the press conference or to you guys. I never said anything and the reason is, first off, when you lose, you just take your loss. It’s not a tap if the referee doesn’t call it a tap so therefore, Tito didn’t tap. I thought he tapped, and I let a move go. He verbally tapped, and I never said anything about it and the reason was, he quit the sport five seconds later. He quit the sport five seconds after I tapped and he quit the sport a minute and five seconds after he tapped. There was no rematch. There was nothing to build and no reason to tell the real story.
“He then make-believes that he’s gonna come back for Fedor. Now, Tito was nowhere near the Fedor fight. He didn’t offer his services, he had nothing to do with it, but the bottom line was, he then took himself out of retirement by pretending that he offered to fight Fedor, which he did not do. If Tito ever wanted to come back and play, I’ll tell the whole story of what happened in that fight.”
Sonnen also brought up the first fight both men had as college wrestlers long before their respective MMA days – their fight at Bellator 170 had been labelled a “rematch” by Sonnen. Ortiz’s agreement to cancel his retirement at short notice last weekend is seemingly an indication of his willingness to return to MMA. Sonnen sees an opportunity to make amends for his recent defeat:
“And yeah, we are one apiece. I never got going. That guy is easy work for me. I would put that guy away in less than two minutes. It would be a completely different fight. It bothers me. It bothers me to come out here and say that I’d clean a guy up in two minutes that just tapped me out. I realize how insane that sounds but the guy was gone.”
The former UFC middleweight contender claims that he has refrained from breaking his silence regarding the alleged “tap” by Tito, and admits that he has “ran a tap back” in the past:
“I would’ve taken it to my grave. It was between Tito and I. He gave me a look after the fight. Tito, we’re good man. I tapped fair and square. The ref called my tap, he didn’t call your tap, we’re good. You think I’ve never ran a tap back before? Sure I have. You’re in there, you do anything you can. I had absolutely no problem with it.”
Could a rematch between Chael Sonnen and Tito Ortiz be a possibility?
