Chael Sonnen reveals Tito Ortiz tapped at Bellator 170

Earlier this year, UFC veteran Chael Sonnen stepped into the Bellator MMA cage with UFC Hall of Famer Tito Ortiz for a highly anticipated grudge match in the main event of Bellator 170.

Ultimately, Ortiz picked up a 1st round submission win, catching Sonnen in a rear naked choke after Sonnen let go of a Japanese Necktie submission. Prior to that however, Sonnen had Ortiz caught in a guillotine, where he says that Ortiz verbally tapped out.

Chael Sonnen explained on his You’re Welcome! podcast:

“The score is one-one between Tito and I and you always go into a rubber match. Everyone knows that. The only reason I kept my mouth shut at the Tito fight – look, Tito tapped in that fight. I knew Tito tapped when he tapped. I heard Tito verbally tap and I’ve never said a word about it, privately to Tito at the press conference or to you guys. I never said anything and the reason is, first off, when you lose, you just take your loss. It’s not a tap if the referee doesn’t call it a tap so therefore, Tito didn’t tap. I thought he tapped, and I let a move go. He verbally tapped, and I never said anything about it and the reason was, he quit the sport five seconds later. He quit the sport five seconds after I tapped and he quit the sport a minute and five seconds after he tapped. There was no rematch. There was nothing to build and no reason to tell the real story.

“He then make-believes that he’s gonna come back for Fedor. Now, Tito was nowhere near the Fedor fight. He didn’t offer his services, he had nothing to do with it, but the bottom line was, he then took himself out of retirement by pretending that he offered to fight Fedor, which he did not do. If Tito ever wanted to come back and play, I’ll tell the whole story of what happened in that fight.”

“I would’ve taken it to my grave. It was between Tito and I. He gave me a look after the fight. Tito, we’re good man. I tapped fair and square. The ref called my tap, he didn’t call your tap, we’re good. You think I’ve never ran a tap back before? Sure I have. You’re in there, you do anything you can. I had absolutely no problem with it.”

Prepare for what will likely be a very quick Tito Ortiz response.

This article first appeared on b on 2/23/2017.