Chael Sonnen looks back on strange encounter with “drug addict” Tito Ortiz

Back in January, in the main event of Bellator 170, former UFC light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz retired with an abrupt submission win over three-time UFC title challenger Chael Sonnen. Though you might expect this outcome to mark the end on the pair’s beef, it didn’t. Several months later, during Sonnen’s Bellator NYC battle with rival Wanderlei Silva, Ortiz could be seen chirping him from cage-side.

Now several months removed from this battle with Silva, which he won by unanimous decision, Sonnen discussed Ortiz’s mid-fight actions with Duane Finley of FloCombat.com.

“I thought his behavior was bizarre,” Sonnen said. “Tito (Ortiz) is a drug addict, and it’s kind of hard to imagine he’s going to be rational. I could see his eyes that night, and his pupils were the size of Easter eggs. I knew he was high and didn’t know what he was going to do.”

“I did find it peculiar because Tito won. Tito beat me, and it’s just being a poor sport. I know poor sports because Wanderlei (Silva) pushed me after the fight, and he’s a poor sport as well, but I’ve never heard of a poor winner before. Tito won the fight, and he’s over here shouting at me. I just thought it was strange, but then I looked in his eyes and saw he was cranked out of his mind. I thought to myself, ‘OK… this is going to be interesting.’

“Dan Henderson and Randy Couture were right next to him, which makes me think he might have wanted to pick his audience better. I had my hands full with the fight, but Henderson even gave me the look at one point. And I knew what the look meant because I’ve known Henderson for 20 years. That look said, ‘You want me to handle this?’

“Now I don’t like Tito, but I don’t hate Tito enough for that because that isn’t going to go well for him when Dan Henderson gets involved.”

What do you make of this story from Chael Sonnen?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 8/3/2017.