UFC
Forrest Griffin vs. Tito Ortiz III in the works for Ortiz's final UFC fight
Feb 10, 2012 - 2:30:44 PM Forrest Griffin vs. Tito Ortiz III in the works for Ortiz's final UFC fight

DISCUSS ALL THIS IN OUR NEW MMATORCH FORUM

...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

It appears Tito Ortiz will indeed get his third fight with Forrest Griffin sometime this year, a fight he says will be his last.

UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta, in the midst of a lengthy question and answer session on Twitter early this morning, said that the fight with Ortiz would be next for Griffin when asked by a curious fan. He didn't give a date for the fight, but it will come sometime in the next several months.

Ortiz and Griffin first met back at UFC 59 in 2006. At the time, Griffin had won three fights to kickstart his UFC career, and the bout with Ortiz was his first step into the upper echelon of the UFC's light heavyweight division. He would lose that fight by split decision, but still had a good showing as he came back from diversity and arguably took the final two rounds of the fight.

It would be another three and a half years before they would meet again, this time in the main event of UFC 106 in November of 2009. Ortiz was returning to the UFC after a lengthy hiatus due to a contract dispute and several injuries, while Griffin had gone through a roller-coaster 14 months. In that stretch, he had captured the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship, then lost it to Rashad Evans before getting blitzed by Anderson Silva the summer before the second meeting.

In that fight, Griffin returned the split decision favor in another close bout, evening up the series at one apiece. Griffin has gone 1-1 since that second meeting, most recently losing to Mauricio "Shogun" Rua at UFC 134. Ortiz has gone 1-3 since that second meeting, and rides into his final fight on a two-fight losing streak, and his only TKO losses to anyone but Chuck Liddell.

Penick's Analysis: I'm not wholly interested in a third fight between the two, especially since it doesn't mean much for Griffin in this situation. However, as he's not necessarily on his way towards a title shot anytime soon, this is a marquee fight and a chance to gain an advantage in the series. For Ortiz, it's his one last opportunity to get a win to close out his career, and he feels he can defeat Griffin so it's a fight that makes sense to him.

[Forrest Griffin art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]