UFC 106: Tito Ortiz vs Forrest Griffin

This Saturday night Tito Ortiz will make his UFC return to rematch Forrest Griffin. Ortiz has been out of action for nearly 18 months, during that time he under went back surgery to finally fix his ongoing nagging back problems. He also used his time off to speak with other promotions including EliteXC and Affliction, who Tito actually did commentary for during their second event. Forrest Griffin is coming off of a devistating defeat at the hands of pound-for-pound one of the best fighers around today, Anderson Silva at UFC 101 in August. They're both former Light Heavyweight Champions, both have monumental victories on their records, and both have devistating defeats on their records.

The first fight went down back in 2006. Tito was coming off of a year long layoff, Forrest Griffin was the surging winner of the Ultimate Fighter competition. When they crossed paths they put on an epic battle.

In the first round, Ortiz was successful at getting  the taedown and delivered some devistating ground and pound from inside Forrest's guard. Forrest eventually worked his way back to his feet, but it was too little too late for Griffin. In round two, Griffin came out strong and took the fight to Tito. After defending a couple lazy shots from Ortiz, Griffin went on to win the round. The third round was very close. Griffin got the better of most of the exchanges, while Ortiz got a takdown with under two minutes remaining in the fight. Although no ground and pound was delivered,that takedwon probably cost Forrest Griffin the decision.

After the fight it seemed as though Frrest was the real winner and Tito was the loser. Although they were in Tito's home town for that fight, the crowd boo'd him during the post-fight interview, but cheard when Griffin got on the mic. 

Taking into account these guys' previous few fights, I feel like they both have something to prove this weekend. No doubt Griffin wants to erase his last fight with Anderson Silva from his memory (and everyone else'). And Ortiz wants to show that the first fight was no fluke, contraversial, or incorrect decision.

During most of the pre-fight interviews that I've seen with Tito, he's said that he not only fought Griffin last time at 60%, but that he feels like he's 100% going into the fight this weekend. If that's true, it could be a long night for Griffin. But Griffin apears to be training equally as hard and is just as focused. The only kicker here is that Griffin took the fight on short notice. Ortiz' original opponent was Mark Coleman, but "The Hammer" was forced to withdraw a couple of weeks ago due to injuries. So Forrest stepped in to take his place... And now the fight is the main event.

 I feel like if anything can make the difference, it's that Griffin didn't have a full training camp to prepare for a possible "100% Tito Ortiz". But I know one thing for sure, you can never count out Forrest Griffin.