Dana White vs Tito Ortiz: When the UFC president almost fought a former champion
Once upon a time, UFC president Dana White and former UFC champion Tito Ortiz were supposed to fight each other in a boxing match.
Dana White doesn't always have the smoothest of relationships with the fighters on the UFC roster, and at times, it has escalated to arguments, and even potential fights. Such was the case when Dana White and Tito Ortiz were supposedly scheduled to face each other in a boxing match.
White and Ortiz have some deep history together. For starters, White once managed Ortiz. That relationship soured when White eventually became the UFC's president. It even came to a point that the two got into a full-blown fist-fight on a private plane:
In 2007, White and Ortiz were originally scheduled to meet in a boxing match. According to White in an interview with TMZ, it was Ortiz who challenged him to a fight, but then backed out at the last minute:
"He challenged me. [I] trained for it, I brought in like real guys, I spent serious time really training for this fight, and I was absolutely gonna do it. He blinked. I absolutely would've won that boxing match."
All that is in the past however, as Dana White and Tito Ortiz have appeared to bury the hatchet. White even congratulated Ortiz for his recent win on the Huntington Beach City Council.
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Tito Ortiz's other feuds aside from Dana White
While Dana White vs. Tito Ortiz is possibly one of the most popular feuds in UFC history, Ortiz has been involved in other rivalries as well.
When Tito Ortiz was the UFC light heavyweight champion, he successfully defended the title against Ken Shamrock. The animosity between the two would only intensify after they were selected as coaches for the third season of The Ultimate Fighter. At the end of the season, Ortiz defeated Shamrock once again. In the final bout, Ortiz would make it 3-for-3 with a third TKO win over Shamrock.
Tito Ortiz would not be as successful in his other famous rivalry against Chuck Liddell. In their first meeting in 2004, Ortiz lost by second round KO. Two years later, Ortiz and Liddell would meet again, this time for the UFC light heavyweight championship. Ortiz would again lose by TKO. Ortiz would be able to get his revenge when the two met in a third bout outside the UFC. Under the Golden Boy Promotions banner in 2018, Ortiz knocked Liddell out in the first round.
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