Report: Affliction to Sign Tito Ortiz for Oct. 11th PPV

by smoogy on Jul 29, 2008 2:45 AM EDT Comment 9 comments

Steve Cofield has the exclusive for Yahoo Sports:

Sources have told Yahoo! Sports that free agent Tito Ortiz will fight Renato "Babalu" Sobral in the co-main event at Affliction's next fight card, on Oct. 11 at the Thomas & Mack Center on the UNLV campus in Las Vegas. The main event will feature a heavyweight bout between WAMMA champion Fedor Emelianenko and Andrei Arlovski.

Affliction vice president Tom Atencio would not confirm the Ortiz-Babalu fight. He said details for the fight card will be released during an Aug. 6 news conference that most likely will be held in Las Vegas.

How big is this signing for Affliction?

Well, lets look at the buy estimates (courtesy of MMAPayout and Dave Meltzer) for Tito's last five pay per views:

UFC 59 - Ortiz v. Griffin - 425,000
UFC 61 - Ortiz v. Shamrock II - 775,000
UFC 66 - Liddell v. Ortiz - 1,050,000
UFC 73 - Ortiz v. Evans - 425,000
UFC 84 - Ortiz v. Machida - 475,000-525,000

Average: 635,000

To put this in modern TV parlance, Affliction just pulled a "game changer". With a PPV ace like Ortiz, the landscape changes drastically. Given a proper promotional effort, the 250,000-300,000 buy range talked about by Affliction promoter Tom Atencio that was passed off as a laughably unrealistic goal now seems much more attainable, to say the least.

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Bloody Elbow readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bloody Elbow editors or staff.

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Tito isn't the draw he used to be

Those #’s are very skewed…

UFC 59-AA/Syliva 2 was the main event…and AA was a draw back then
UFC 61-Tito was fighting the only person he could beat…and a big ‘name’ in Shamrock
UFC 66-I’ll give Tito credit…he had people believing he could actually beat Liddell…LOL
UFC 73-2 title fights were on the line that night…Ortiz was involved in neither
UFC 84-Penn/Sherk….Wanderlei were all on the card

So I don’t think you can look at those 5 cards and just give Tito most of the credit for the buys. He didn’t carry any of those cards IMO…

Now, surely he could bump up Affliction’s numbers a little…but
#1. They still have to sign him
#2. He will break the bank on them(no way he let’s them pay Tim Sylvia $800K) and not at least get that from them…if not more…

http://tharealness.wordpress.com/

by Tha Realness on Jul 29, 2008 8:28 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

We’ll have to disagree then, because all indications are that he carried all of those cards in terms of PPV buys. If you remember the hype for 59 and 73, it was all about TIto. Sure, you can’t go ahead and give Ortiz credit for selling a million PPV buys at UFC 66, but you can’t give Liddell all the credit either.

If you’re saying the average appears a bit high because Tito was in two very high profile fights then I’ll give you that, but the fact remains that TIto sells a lot of bloody PPVs

by smoogy on Jul 29, 2008 12:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

One has to admit that teaming up Fedor/AA with Tito isn’t going to hurt anything. Any idea of when they are going to release the numbers from the banned card?

by Heenan on Jul 29, 2008 9:34 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

If this turns out to be a one fight deal, it may be good for Affliction. One Tito fight may be all they can afford. For the next show, they can make the needed changes and get more viewers via Tito Ortiz. If the changes are what the viewers want then they’ve got more fans to cater too. One question that comes to mind, is will Tito be wearing a Team Punishment shirt or Affliction?

by lovingmma25 on Jul 29, 2008 10:13 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

What happened to the rumor about 2-3 weeks ago of Tito re-signing with Zuffa?

http://tharealness.wordpress.com/

by Tha Realness on Jul 29, 2008 10:24 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Wasn’t that rumor on FightHype.com?

Tito talks about getting respect then he talks about getting paid. Getting paid does not equal respect. We all know that, he needs to make up his mind as to what he wants. Does he want respect or does he want to get paid more money? But it seems that if the UFC is going to pay him more than what others are offering – I think he’ll stay with the UFC.

by lovingmma25 on Jul 29, 2008 11:03 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Tito needs to change up his fighting style if he wants to keep his fans. One thing that would help him keep his fans and gain new fans is to use his submission skills. I admit, I was on my feet when I seen him go for a triangle and armbar on Machida. The other obvious improvement he needs to make is his striking.

Any opponent he has now, knows what he is going to do, take them down, pin them against the fence and ground n pound them. He can only keep this up for so long.

by lovingmma25 on Jul 29, 2008 11:08 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Titos is going to get knock out

Tito is going to get knock out by Babalu, cause his run out of friend to train him, he also wont pay a training to teach him stand up, which he needs cause his take down are weak in todays mma, Babalu has better stand up and I dont see Tito able to take him down, so if he cant get him down there is nothing Tito can do but take a beating like in his last fight, Dana had his boy school Tito for 3 rounds, I have enjoyed Tito but his true color are starting to show, and he needs to bring some new game cuase his is old

by xsaavedra on Jul 29, 2008 12:28 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs