Stephan Bonnar Bashes Tito Ortiz For His Time In TNA Wrestling

In an interview with Wrestling Inc, Stephan Bonnar, who is training to become a wrestler, bashed Tito Ortiz for his time with TNA. Here are highlights:

On using wrestling promotional tactics before MMA fights: “I picked his brain a lot, and when he went back on his WWE tours, I went to a lot of the shows that he was on, and got to talk with a lot of the guys. It was more about the research and picking the brains. Sure, it did help too. Even when I turned heel on Tito [Ortiz] and he was calling himself The People’s Champ, really what he did was turn babyface; from The Huntington Beach Bad Boy to People’s Champ, and now he is trying to be a babyface, so how about I turn heel during the fight announcement, and he said that that would be a hell of an idea. I asked if he thought it would spark interest in the fight and he was like, for sure. I gave it a shot, and it did. It was the most watched fight of 2014 and it was a big hit. I had a lot of fun doing that. I had so much fun doing that and I thought, ‘Wow, why don’t I just pro wrestle?'”

On leaving MMA: “No, even though it is a three fight deal, I just had one fight left. That was it. I didn’t want it to end on the Anderson Silva note, it was kind of a sour note and took that fight on short notice. Before that I was campaigning for a big fight. I wanted them to let me become a coach on The Ultimate Fighter. It would have made for great TV and I had a lot of great ideas for that, but it just wasn’t happening. In the UFC I wasn’t going to get that marquee fight and have fun, campaign and promote the fight, but it just wasn’t going to happen,” he said. “Then, once Bellator came along I was given my chance to do it. To go out the way that I wanted to, go out and have fun and have people tune in, and promote the fight and to create a way to become a heel. Legitimately, if there is one guy in the sport I really didn’t care for it was really him [Tito Ortiz]. If there was one fight that you could have had—it was him, so it was all those things, and most of the guys that I fight I like. We have a lot in common and I don’t have anything against them, but him, I just heard from so many people how he screwed so many people over and how he owes people money and never paid them, just terrible things. It’s like, this guy is a jerk and I am going to pretend to turn heel, and my opinion was, hey, if you still like Tito Ortiz and Bonnar is a jerk, then he can have you if you are that stupid. That was my attitude. I wanted to go out having fun and I had lost a close one with a split decision, which is a cliche of my career where I had close fights not going my way, so I think it was a good way to go out.”

On Ortiz’ time in TNA: “I did. Whenever the put a mic on him it was terrible. It was God-awful. He couldn’t say a promo to save his life. It was really bad.”