Tito Ortiz is a guy who isn’t averse to just saying things to push his own narrative (i.e. his claim that he came into UFC 106 with a “fractured skull”). So, the truth of Tito’s latest story is obviously in question.
In speaking with MMA Weekly, Ortiz laid out a claim that his old wrestling coach, who is training Bonnar for this fight, is actually an Ortiz double agent:
“And sneakily on my side, I got (fighter manager) Dave Thomas to sign him. Dave Thomas signed him and we had to think of something to make him believe that Dave Thomas doesn’t like me, that Paul Herrera didn’t like me. Paul Herrera was going to coach him. And Stephan Bonnar bit the line, hook and sinker. He thought in his own mind that all of his guys were against me and I fooled him.”
Ortiz’s relationship with Herrera goes back a long, long way. Herrera was Ortiz’s high school wrestling coach, and he’s trained with Herrera off and on for years. Ortiz indicates that sending Herrera in to work with Bonnar was his plan all along, that it really had nothing to do with him not wanting to work with Herrera, and that it had everything to do with having an insider in Bonnar’s camp.
“And now it’s a week out from the fight. I know how his training camp went. I know the ins and outs. So he just got baited,” Ortiz said. “That’s how bad I want to cave his face in.
At least we can all admit that it’s another fun/weird twist in a rivalry that is the closest American MMA has ever come to pro wrestling.
Bonnar and Ortiz meet this Saturday on Spike TV at Bellator 131.