Chael Sonnen: Tito Ortiz Is The Worst Fighter I Ever Fought

Sonnen Ortiz

Chael Sonnen is gearing up for his grudge match with Wanderlei Silva, which will take place on June 24, 2017 in the main event of Bellator NYC at Madison Square Garden, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten about his disappointing Bellator debut last January.

Sonnen was submitted by former UFC light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz in a fight that many said was ‘fixed’. While “The American Gangster” said the fight wasn’t fixed, he did acknowledge how ‘bad’ it had to have been for fans to believe it was:

“Oh, Tito is terrible,” Sonnen told Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “Tito was absolutely terrible. I was in the fight with him and that fight ended and some people said it was a fixed fight, to use that term.

“When you fight so poorly that some people can’t even imagine you fought that poorly that it has to be fixed, that’s not good. On some hands, it’s funny we can sit here and laugh about it. But that’s how bad it was.”

After calling Ortiz ‘terrible’, Sonnen continued on to label “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ as the ‘worst fighter’ he’s ever fought. By saying that, however, Sonnen also said that the loss made him the ‘worst fighter’:

“Tito sucks,” Sonnen said. “I mean, Tito is so bad. And when you lose to a guy, then you suck. That’s the way it works, man. I wouldn’t put that guy without putting myself down. Tito is the worst fighter I ever fought and that makes me the worst fighter. And I just didn’t know that about myself.”

The bad blood between the two was evident in the lead up to the bout, but it apparently continued afterwards as well, as Sonnen claimed that Ortiz continued to be a ‘jerk’ after the fight:

“When we got into the back and he was still a jerk about it, that confused me,” Sonnen said. “It’s like, Tito, you’re terrible. I’m the name that’s gonna move this company forward. You’ve gotta pass the torch.”

Do you expect Sonnen to help move Bellator forward when he headlines their second pay-per-view (PPV) event on June 24, or will he face another set back against Silva?