After months and months of hype, the Tito Ortiz versus Chael Sonnen fight at Bellator 170 fizzled out in the cage after a mere two minutes of combat with Sonnen being forced to tap to a neck crank from Ortiz. You don't see many people tapping to cranks at the top end of the sport, so more than a few people voiced the opinion that something seemed fishy with the Bellator main event ... which is not the first time we've heard that claim either.
In response, Tito Ortiz took to social media to mock the 'stupid idiot haters' who doubted the finish was legit.
All these people are saying it was a fixed fight, those are the ones that are just fu*king haters. Believe me I tried to punch him hard in the face. I tried to elbow him in the face, hard. He gave his back, and I’m going to take the choke.
That was ‘fixed’, so that’s why I held on the choke a little longer? He even marked me. I got marks in my face from him. C’mon people. C’mon. I don’t f*cking do fixed fights, stupid! Haters are gonna be haters.
Yeah, ‘really fixed’, man’s going to need neck surgery. That’s how fixed the fight was, you stupid asses. C’mon people, don’t be so ignorant. Don’t be so dumb. People who do believe it, don’t be so gullible. You guys see how red his face was? I almost ripped his neck off, I almost broke his head, I almost broke his jaw, to tell you the truth. I was squeezing for dear life, that’s for sure.
Tito has a right to be angry ... he's never been the target of fixing accusations in his career. Even when people were freaking out over how his controversial The Ultimate Fighter match with Ken Shamrock ended in 2006, everyone was throwing shade at Ken for taking a dive in the fight.
In this case, we doubt the fight was fixed but when someone taps to a neck crank you're going to hear a lot of variations on the idea that Chael threw the fight. Some people think it's possible he went into the fight with the intention of jobbing to Tito. Some think he just didn't really want to be in there and gave up the moment the going got tough.
Personally, I think the crank looked legit enough to force a tap. But did we see the best Chael Sonnen that could have showed up in the cage that night or a guy just looking for a paycheck? We had the same questions about Ken Shamrock following his fight with Kimbo Slice (funny how Ken’s name keeps coming up), and Quinton Jackson can't even be bothered getting down to light heavyweight for his second fight with King Mo. If Rampage puts in a poor performance that results in a quick loss, it might be time for Bellator to rethink its booking strategy. Or keep rolling with it by bringing Bob Sapp into the organization.