Legendary MMA Fighter Tito Ortiz Believes He Has a Better Chance of Doing What Daniel Cormier Can’t… He Thinks He Can Take Down Jon Jones…
Tito Ortiz has had a long and storied MMA career. The UFC Hall-of-Famer held the light-heavyweight title from 2000-2003 and has also fought for Bellator. He’s one of the most popular and iconic fighters of his generation. Now at the age of 44, he’s set to fight again for Combate Americas and take on WWE star Alberto del Rio in a catchweight bout.
Ortiz might also be angling for one last massive payday before he hangs up his gloves. The veteran took aim at Jon Jones, the current UFC light-heavyweight champion, who is also regarded by many as the greatest fight of all time. That’s a brave move, Tito. Either that or it’s just dumb. We’ll let you decide.
Anyway, he thinks he has a better chance of beating Jones than Daniel Cormier. Well, anything multiplied by zero is still zero right? He spoke on the Domenick Nati Show where he made some very interesting claims.
Too Short
Ortiz believes that Jones’s long and lanky frame is the issue that none of his opponents has been able to deal with. He’s master of maintaining his fingertip distance and damaging his opponents from range, picking them apart. The veteran believes that DC is just too short and stocky to take him on. He said:
“I think I would do a lot better against Jon Jones than Daniel Cormier because Cormier is just a shorter guy (with) bigger legs, bigger torso. “He’s just a big, big guy.
“Jon Jones is long and lengthy. I’m going to get in the inside and try to overpower some of the positions. But if it would be Jon Jones, I would think I’d have a great chance against him.”
Give Me Time
Ortiz fully believes that if he had a proper training camp that he could be the man to get in Jones’s face and put a beating on him. I mean we are talking about the man who got knocked out by Chuck Liddell twice. Sure, Jones looked less convincing than normal against Thiago Santos but this would still be the biggest upset of all time. When asked if he could beat him, Ortiz said:
“Yup, I think I could. If I have a camp like I did the last one of 18 weeks, 100 percent,” he said. “There really hasn’t been anybody to fight Jon Jones, to get in his face, and stay in his face. Everybody else, they want to strike on the outside with him. He’s too damn long, you cannot do that. You got to get in the inside of him. That’s the way to fight him.
In His Face
Even if he’s not the man to hand out the beating, maybe somebody like Johnny Walker could be the one to do it instead. He made a strong case for how to beat Jones. He said:
“As a coach and as a fighter, that’s the way to beat him. Someone should be aggressive enough to keep the fight, pushing him around. Make him feel uncomfortable.”
So far none of ‘Bones” 27 opponents have been able to do it.
