Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney isn’t going to walk away from the Tito Ortiz business. Ortiz, who was scheduled to main event Bellator 106 on PPV against Quinton Jackson until a neck injury forced him out of the bout and the card to free TV, stated recently that he’ll be back in the gym in six weeks and wants to fight again. At the post-fight press conference, Rebney stated that he’s “worried” about Ortiz hurting himself if he fights again, but he is going to stick to his commitment:
“He’ll be back. Right now we just have to worry about the fracture in his neck healed 120 percent. Once it’s healed he’ll be back. He wants to fight again, and his neck specialist told me that it’s not the kind of injury you can’t come back from.”
…
“I’ve made a commitment to him that we’d try to make another run. And while this went s**tty, the assumption is he’ll heal and we’ll give it a run. He’s had injuries, but he hasn’t made a career out of pulling out of fights.
“If the healing happens as is anticipated, then he’ll get back in and we’ll schedule another fight.”
He also laughed off the conspiracy theories that implied Tito’s injury was faked to get the card off of PPV where it would have bombed:
“I can give you ridiculous smartass answer after ridiculous smartass answer about Oliver Stone and the grassy knoll. I actually have x-rays from Tito’s real neck that shows that it wasn’t fractured before and it is now. So, if the conspiracy was deep enough where someone actually colluded to fracture Tito’s neck to carry it out, then it’s a conspiracy that’s well beyond absurd. It’s ridiculous.”
Can we expect Bellator to try and pull Rampage/Tito off again on PPV with Michael Chandler and Eddie Alvarez meeting for the third time in the co-main slot? I wouldn’t be surprised if they did but based on the first go-round at this, I’d hope they could come up with something better than that.
About the author
