{"id":453423,"date":"2022-07-18T05:17:50","date_gmt":"2022-07-18T12:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=453423"},"modified":"2022-07-18T05:17:50","modified_gmt":"2022-07-18T12:17:50","slug":"former-ufc-champion-tito-ortiz-reveals-he-competed-for-free-in-his-octagon-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/former-ufc-champion-tito-ortiz-reveals-he-competed-for-free-in-his-octagon-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Former UFC champion Tito Ortiz reveals he competed for free in his Octagon debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former UFC star Tito Ortiz has revealed that he competed for free when he first stepped foot inside the Octagon.<\/p>\n<p>While he may be something of a <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/tito-ortiz-confirms-that-he-will-retire-from-mma-in-2022-hopes-for-shogun-rua-ufc-fight-i-have-a-lot-of-respect-for-him\/\">controversial figure<\/a> in the modern era, Tito Ortiz is known by many as &#8216;The Huntington Beach Bad Boy&#8217; for a reason. The ex-UFC light heavyweight champion accomplished some great things during his time as an active mixed martial artist and nobody can ever take away from him what he was able to do in the cage.<\/p>\n<p>His MMA debut actually took place at UFC back in May 1997 and as he revealed during a recent interview, he fought for free on that night.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Tito Ortiz Regrets How Things Ended in UFC, Ken Shamrock Fights, Dana White\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jgYMrUAVUNg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cI fought in UFC 13\u2026 I fought for free as an amateur, no UFC fighter in history has ever fought for free,\u201d Ortiz said. \u201cI did it just to kinda test myself, see how good I truly could be. J.C, junior college wrestling state champion\u2026was 199 [pounds] and thought I\u2019d give it a try. I was training with Tank Abbott who fought in the UFC at the time and thought hey let\u2019s give this a try\u2026 so I fought May 30th, 1997, stopped my first guy in seconds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cI visualized myself in the finals, and the guy that made it to the finals incidentally ended up getting hurt, and I was the replacement. I was beating Guy Mezger and then they separated us, put us back on our feet, hit him with a big shot, and cut him\u2026 went for a takedown and got caught in a guillotine and didn\u2019t know what that was at the time, white belt stuff. I had to tap, but I was hooked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cI loved it\u2026 as a kid growing up on the streets, parents not being around me that much, I was always dying for attention. And the attention was there of fans [wanting my autograph]\u2026 but to come to realize that this was going to be the making of Tito Ortiz.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>Quotes via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmanews.com\/2022\/07\/tito-ortiz-free\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MMA News<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<p><em>What are your thoughts on the career of Tito Ortiz?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former UFC star Tito Ortiz has revealed that he competed for free when he first stepped foot inside the Octagon. While he may be something of a controversial figure in the modern era, Tito Ortiz is known by many as &#8216;The Huntington Beach Bad Boy&#8217; for a reason. The ex-UFC light heavyweight champion accomplished some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54478,"featured_media":387099,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10188,39610],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Former UFC champion Tito Ortiz reveals he competed for free in his Octagon debut | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former UFC star Tito Ortiz has revealed that he competed for free when he first stepped foot inside the Octagon.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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