In common society, a trilogy of anything, whether it be movies, books or in this case mixed martial arts — A third installment is a rare occurrence.
For two fighters to make it to their third fight and have the audience still compelled enough to pay their hard earned dollars to see this encounter after they’ve witnessed it twice beforehand is very hard to pull off.
Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin will write the third chapter in their series on July 7 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Ortiz has teased calling it quits following this bout that he has lobbied for although that is not set in stone — The 37-year-old future Hall of Famer was one of the first marketable commodities in the Zuffa era and a key reason for them turning the ship around.
Now in the twilight of his career he has only had his hand raised three times in his past ten career fights.
Griffin joined the UFC as a key member of the ground-breaking first season of The Ultimate Fighter and with his hard work and dedication parlayed with his lovable personality he became a star reaching his pinnacle taking the UFC light-heavyweight title from Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.
Since losing his spot as the top dog at 205-pounds he has gone 2-2 with embarrassing knockout losses to Anderson Silva and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.
Griffin and Ortiz first met at UFC 56 in a forgotten classic as these two battled to the final buzzer in a bout that Fighting Spirit Magazine declared their fight of the year for 2006 with Ortiz just sneaking by to get a split decision.
Griffin would return the favor at UFC 106 showing vast improvement in his striking to take a split decision back from the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy”.
Now it’s time for us to close the book on Ortiz vs. Griffin which could be the final time we see the UFC’s ultimate bad-boy of the late-nineties in the octagon.
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