The career of Tito Ortiz looked like it was everything but over when he stepped into the Octagon on UFC 132.
The former UFC Lightweight Champion was about to be fired when he took on Ryan Bader in Las Vegas in 2011.
Ortiz had not won a fight in five years, not since his knockout victory over Ken Shamrock on UFC 61, and was about to be discharged from the promotion after a series of bad losses.
UFC 132 looked like his last outing in the UFC and offered a legendary hunter a last chance to cash in himself in the octagon for a crowd that once loved him.
However, it did not end in a way that someone expected that night for Ortiz.
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Tito Ortiz shocked UFC fans with one of the greatest disturbances of 2011
Ortiz's collision with Bader probably seemed his last fight in the UFC, and nobody gave him a lot of chance to walk Las Vegas as the winner.
The competition was often noticed as being the “last stand” of Ortiz, given his bad form in the last five years when he laughed to hunters such as Chuck Liddell, Lyoto Machida and Forrest Griffin.
He looked a shadow of his dominant former self and, as all hunters have to endure in their career, looked past his best in the Octagon.
In the meantime, Bader was ready for greatness. The winner “The Ultimate Fighter” won his first four fights in the UFC before he understandably lost to Jon Jones less than a year before the Ortiz fight.
Everyone expected that he would add the scalp of Ortiz to his record to help Bader in the upper echelons of the UFC Light Heavyweight Division.
But sometimes the youth is not a party for experience, or the incredible tenacity of a legendary hunter with his back to the wall, fighting for his career.
Ortiz dominated the younger Bader and hit him with a large right hand in the first round. He mounted “Darth” Bader, lay in hammer fists before he locked a cheeky-looking guillotine choke, from which Bader had no escape.
He walked on the neck of his helpless opponent, the pain that was so unbearable and inescapable that Bader had no choice but to be able to tap Ortiz's shoulder, which indicates that “the bad bath of Huntington Beach” was not yet ready.
The victory over Ryan Bader was the last victory of Tito Ortiz in the UFC of his career
However, Ortiz has in fact been done for all purposes.
Although it was one of the largest light heavyweight hunters in the UFC history, Ortiz's victory over Bader was the last bit of juice left in the tank.
Ortiz's victory over Bader was the last UFC victory of his career. He followed it up with back-to-back TKO losses for Rashad Evans and Antonio Nogueira, as well as a unanimous decision defeat against Forrest Griffin.
He left the UFC to become a member of Bellator, where he added a few victories, including about Chael Sonnen, but never reached the heights that the victory seemed to point to.
Bader has never become a champion in the UFC, but wrote history in Bellator. He was the very first two-weight champion in the history of the promotion and still has the record for the longest winning series of every champion.
Given the success that Bader went on after he was tapping Ortiz, it makes the last position of the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” so much more impressive.