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Chael Sonnen Says Tito Ortiz’s Behavior At Bellator NYC Was ‘Really Bizarre’

June 26, 2017 | Posted by Joseph Lee

In an interview with MMA Fighting, Chael Sonnen spoke about the behavior of Tito Ortiz at Bellator: NYC. Ortiz retired in January after beating Sonnen in the first round at Bellator 170. He was cageside for the NYC show at Madison Square Garden. He gave Sonnen the finger prior to his fight with Wanderlei Silva and continued to taunt him through the fight. It was so bad that at one point the audience directed a vulgar chant at Ortiz. Here are highlights:

On Ortiz’s cageside antics: “Tito is a really bizarre guy, you know? I just lost to him. You never rub a guy’s face in it. You just don’t do that. I’m getting ready to fight and Tito is flipping me off and yelling terrible things at me, I just thought it was really bizarre.”

On Douglas Lima’s title defense over Lorenz Larkin: “Tonight belongs to one guy, and that is Douglas Lima,” Sonnen said. “He’s been a Bellator highlight reel for years. He has been disrespected, if you understand how good Lorenz Larkin is and I do, the message of tonight for me as a fan, is Lima vs. [Rory] MacDonald, that is the one thing that came out of tonight.”

On Fedor Emilianenko: “I would never kick a guy when he’s down. I respect Fedor, that was my way of pulling him back up. That match that he had could have gone either way. Mitrione is a rough son of a bitch and people don’t understand that. We had a double knockdown and Fedor had recovered and Mitrione was recovered and all sorts of a mess was out there. I want to make it clear I respect Fedor but I think that he and I are going to cross sooner or later.”

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Chael Sonnen, Joseph Lee