It’s been over a month since Tito Ortiz ended his MMA career by tapping out Chael Sonnen at Bellator 170.
However, Sonnen recently decided to come forward and claim that Ortiz verbally tapped during their match.
So, why did he decide to come forward now?
According to him, there were two factors at play.
“Look, Tito tapped in that fight,” Chael told listeners on his You’re Welcome podcast. “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.”
.@titoortiz's legendary career ends with his hands raised! #Bellator170 pic.twitter.com/vrOWMqe87D
— Bellator MMA (@BellatorMMA) January 22, 2017
Not only did Chael claim that Ortiz tapped, he claimed that The Huntington Beach Bad Boy would have been “easy work” for him.
“And yeah, we are one apiece,” Sonnen continued. “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.”
Of course, it’s all moot point now. MMA officials rarely, if ever, reverse decisions, and even Chael admits he lost fair and square.
So what could The American Gangster be up to by coming forward with this new information now? Did he just need to get everything off of his chest, or could he be hoping to lure Tito out of retirement for a rematch?
Unfortunately, we may never know.
