Childhood & Early Life
Tito Ortiz was born Jacob Christopher Ortiz in Huntington Beach, California on January 23, 1975, and lived there until he was five. Thereafter, he moved to Santa Ana, California along with his family.
His father, Samuel Ortiz, is of Mexican descent and mother, Joyce Ortiz, is an American, and that makes him half-Mexican and half-American. He was born Jacob Christopher but his father nicknamed him Tito. He has been known as Tito since then.
Ortiz is youngest of the four sons born to his parents. His parents were drug-addicts, and that made his childhood rough and traumatic.
With parents addicted to heroin, Ortiz also turned to drugs and got caught in the gang culture. He used drugs like cocaine and PCP, and was often placed in Juvenile centers.
Even so, his determination to soar to the sky made him choose martial arts over his drug addiction. He was 13, when his parents got divorced and he moved back to Huntington with his mother.
He began wrestling while studying at ‘Huntington Beach High School’. During his sophomore years he started excelling at it, and decided to pursue it further. Under the tutelage of Paul Harrera, the then future UFC fighter, who encouraged him to go ahead in this field, he was kicked out of his house by his mother.
Paul Herrera was the head wrestling coach at ‘Golden West College’ and encouraged Tito to enroll in the college. He joined Golden West College and that’s where his journey towards stardom began.
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Early Career
During his sophomore year, Tito started wrestling and ended up winning a CIF championship at 189 pounds, and finished fourth in the state tournament as a senior.
After he met Paul Herrera, he joined the ‘Golden West College’ and started his training. He became a California Junior College State Champion for two consecutive years
He then transferred to California State University at Bakersfield where he continued wrestling but not full-time. Ortiz also trained with UFC fighter and fellow college wrestler, Tank Abbott.
He continued his training till he made his professional debut at UFC 13 in 1997.
UFC Career
Ortiz was still in college when he made his debut at UFC 13. He competed as an amateur for no prize money or contract, but destroyed his opponent Wes Albrittione. However, he lost his next match to Guy Mezger in the Light Heavyweight final.
After that defeat, Tito went on winning his next three contests, including a UFC 12 Light Heavyweight Tournament Champion Jerry Bohlander at UFC 18 and an avenging win against Guy Merzger via first round TKO at UFC 19.
It was customary for the impudent and Ortiz to wear his t-shirts with quotes that disrespected his opponents. After defeating Guy Mezger he wore a t-shirt that read, ‘Gay Mezger is my Bitch’ while he raised the infamous finger gesture towards a bunch of his opponent’s supporters.
This gesture by Ortiz infuriated Ken Shamrock, team’s leader, and that became the reason behind their long running rivalry.
In 1999, he lost to Frank Shamrock for UFC Light Weight Championship at UFC 22.
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After Frank retired, he was again chosen as one of the contenders for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship, where he defeated the super-aggressive Waderlei Silva, known as the ‘The Axe Murderer’ for the Light Heavyweight Championship at UFC 25.
He went on defending his title five times in three years against Yuki Kondo, Evan Tanner, Elvis Sinosic, Vladimir Matyushenko and Lion's Den head Ken Shamrock.
Ortiz defeated his rival Ken Shamrock by the way of TKO at UFC 40. Ortiz dominated the former MMA fighter with his punches, jabs and super human pounding abilities. Shamrock’s defeat made Ortiz the most popular fighter at UFC.
After a year of hiatus, Tito faced Randy Couture at UFC 44, but got defeated by unanimous decision. This fight was significant because it brought Ortiz three-and-a-half-year long title reign to an end, which was also the longest Light Heavyweight Championship reign (until Jon Jones broke by winning his sixth victory in Light Heavyweight Championship on September, 2013).
Ortiz faced another defeat at the hands of Chuck Liddell at UFC 47 via KTO, but had his victory by unanimous decision against Patrick Cole at UFC 50.
In 2005, Ortiz took a break from UFC, and decided to try his hands on other ventures and promotions such as PRIDE Fighting Championships and the Don King-backed World Fighting Alliance, and also started a league called, ‘Extreme Fighting Championship’, which didn’t become quite successful.
In November 2005, Ortiz, along with Ken Shamrock became the coach of ‘The Ultimate Fighter 3’, a reality TV show for Spike TV. In April 2006, he returned to UFC and won against Forrest Griffin via split decision at UFC 59.
His next fight was against UFC Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock which was also a match to conclude the rivalry of ‘The Ultimate Fighter 3’ at UFC 61. The fight continued to UFC 62 where Ortiz beat Shamrock.
After a few more matches, where he suffered more defeats than victories, Ortiz resigned from UFC in 2008. Coupled with an unexpected loss to Lloyoto Machida, through unanimous decision at UFC 84, his frustration with UFC President, Dana White, was also one of the reasons of his departure.
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On July 17, 2009, both Dana White and Tito claimed that they had made amends, and he made a comeback.
After a few fights that resulted in more injuries, Ortiz announced that he will be retiring from UFC after his fight with Forrest Griffin.
On July 17, 2012, he faced Forrest Griffin and lost in a ‘Fight of the Night’ winning performance at UFC 148. He was also inducted in the Hall of Famer before his final fight.
Awards & Achievements
He won a CIF championship in High School
He won California Junior College State Champion for two consecutive years in college.
In 1999, he became the ‘Fighter of the Year’, under Wrestling Observer Newsletter Award.
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He won Mixed Martial Arts Hall of Fame under Sherdog.
He won 2006 ‘Fighter of the Year’ title by ‘Fighting Spirit Magazine’.
He was inducted as a Hall of Famer (Class of 2013) by MMA Freak.
In 2014, became the ‘Comeback Fighter of the Year as per fightmatrix.com
He is also one time ‘Knock Out of the Night’ winner.
He is one time winner of ‘Submission of the Night’.
He has won ‘Fight of the Night’ winner four times.
He has been inducted in ‘UFC Hall of Fame’.
He was a UFC Light Heavyweight Champion with three and a half long year defense.
He has tied most fights in UFC history (27).
He is UFC 13 Light Heavyweight Tournament Runner-Up.
