Tuesday 17 May 2011

Matt Mitrione explains his recent confrontation with Tito Ortiz; offers to fight him at catchweight

Matt Mitrione doesn't care for Tito Ortiz.
Like many UFC fans who detest the antics of "The Huntington Beach Bad Boy," Mitrione had never met the former light heavyweight champion, but that didn't stop him from hurling verbal potshots or having a laugh at the expense of his wife, former porn star Jenna Jameson.
That's when it got personal.
It should come as no surprise then when Ortiz greeted Mitrione with a shove and staredown at the UFC Fighter's Summit held last week in Las Vegas. What Mitrione intended as an introduction quickly became a war of words, with UFC heavyweight contender Roy Nelson there to capture it all on video.
That left UFC fans scratching their heads as to the genesis of the feud, and Mitrione breaks it all down during his recent appearance on The MMA Hour:
"I rip on Tito freely all the time, and I have no issues or qualms with ripping on him. I do it publicly, I do it privately, I do it wherever. But I'd never met him before in person, so I kind of felt like I should at least honestly go and introduce myself to him, so that way he can never be like, 'I've never met that coward and blah, blah, blah.' I wanted to go up to him and be like, 'Hey, I'm Matt. I'm the dude who throws heat on you.'  What happened was, he was talking to Roy Nelson when I approached him. He was talking to Roy, he was sitting down, I walked up and extended my hand, said, 'Hey, I'm Matt.' As he stood up he said, 'Yeah, I know who you are,' and he...pushed me. All one movement. I was wearing my flip-flops like I always do because I'm a summer baby. I kicked my flip-flops off, licked my fingers like I did on The Ultimate Fighter, because I guess that's a habit of mine, and I was like alright, let's scrap. I started to square up a little bit, and then he kept saying, like anybody who doesn't really want to fight, they're like 'hit me, hit me then, hit me.' Well, that's stupid. That's why, in the video, I was like, 'Well, you're the one being aggressive. If you want to be aggressive, then let's scrap. ...I came and introduced myself. I didn't come up here to fight you' ... Just to show that I am a professional, I sought out Mr. [Lorenzo] Fertitta and Dana after all that stuff. I went to go work out and Dana was there and I approached him and pulled him to the side and I was like, 'I want you to know I'm sorry. I did not intend to disrespect your meetings. I didn't intend for that to happen. I just walked up and introduced myself to him and that's when all that stuff occurred, and I'm a grown-ass man and if Tito wanted to throw hands, then I'm sure as hell going to do that.'" "At the end of it I was like, 'Just to let you know, if Tito really wants to run his mouth about this...I will cut down to as close as to 205 as possible, or hopefully you'd let me do 225 as a catchweight, and I will kick his a--.'"
Mitrione will sling some heavy leather against husky handyman Christian Morecraft at UFC on Versus 4 on June 26 at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
"Meathead" came to fame on the tenth installment of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) reality series as a bumbling former football player who possesses plenty of physical tools with a questionable mentality towards the sport of MMA.
He's done nothing but prove the world wrong since his time on the show, amassing a perfect 4-0 record while steadily improving each time out.
But have his verbal barbs and bully-mentality towards Ortiz crossed the line? And has it done anything to hurt his public image?
Furthermore, do any fans want to see him cut weight to try and settle it in the cage? Or should he worry about handling his business at 265-pounds?

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