Tito Ortiz admits ‘Dana was right’ about Oscar De La Hoya promoting MMA

Last November, long-time boxing promoter Oscar De La Hoya promoted his first MMA event. The card, which was topped by a trilogy fight between aging UFC Hall of Famers Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell, received plenty of backlash — most notably from UFC President Dana White.

“The guy wants to act like he’s my competitor [promoting MMA],” White told Yahoo! Sports of De La Hoya’s MMA venture. “I have a real business that I’ve built over the last 18 years. A real business, and I can hit you with numbers for days about [how successful it is]. How much has Oscar De La Hoya reinvested into the sport of boxing? We’ve reinvested millions and millions of dollars and we continue to do it every day. The list goes on and on.

“The guy wants to come out and tell lies and say things that make no sense when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He knows nothing about this sport. He doesn’t know the [expletive] guys’ names who are fighting on his card. He’s a liar. He’s a phoney and God help anybody who wants to go fight for Golden Boy. These fighters are grown men and women. All they have to do is take one meeting with Oscar De La Hoya and they’ll see what he knows about MMA, which is absolutely [expletive] nothing.”

Tito Ortiz, who knocked Liddell out in the main event of this card, initially vehemently supported Oscar De La Hoya. In hindsight, however, after a card that can only be called a pay-per-view disaster, Ortiz admits Dana White was accurate in his assessment of De La Hoya.

“I think he made a lot of mistakes, but at the same time, for a boxing promoter to come into mixed martial arts, it’s a different animal. Dana was right,” Tito Ortiz told The Schmo recently.

Are you surprised to hear Tito Ortiz admit Dana White was right about Oscar De La Hoya?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 5/20/2019.