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Tito Ortiz, power broker
He grew up the son of heroin addicts, then became a world-famous Ultimate Fighter. Now, he’s a multimillion-dollar brand.
By Tina BorgattaPublished: September 01, 2008
It happened this past spring, up at Big Bear Lake, at Oscar de la Hoya’s training camp. Mixed martial arts fighter Tito Ortiz – aka The Huntington Beach Bad Boy – spent several weeks there, training for a May 24 match against Lyoto Machida. And that’s when it hit him: “I was watching TV, and all of a sudden, I got this big smile on my face. I thought, ‘Look where I am now.’”
Or, better yet, see what he is now: a multimillion-dollar brand.
His last Ultimate Fighting Championship contract, which ended with the Machida bout, guaranteed him $1 million a match. Ortiz lost that last fight by decision, but it didn’t dull his marketability. At this magazine’s press time, he stood poised to make even more if he signed a “groundbreaking” contract with another mixed martial arts promotion, Affliction, with which Donald Trump is associated.
But that’s not all. He also runs his own hugely successful clothing line, Punishment Athletics, a company he launched in 1999 with a $500 investment. He raises money for children’s charities. His autobiography, “This Is Gonna Hurt,” hit bookstores in June. He’s working on his own reality show. And then there was that stint on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” earlier this year. (He outlasted rock star Gene Simmons and made it through nine of the season’s 12 episodes.) There have been film and other TV appearances – Jeff Most, producer of “The Crow” television series, called Ortiz “the next Vin Diesel.”
But in the brutal sport of mixed martial arts, Ortiz has a very different rep – a brute of a guy who talks serious trash about his opponents, often beats them into submission in a matter of seconds, then parades around the octagon in T-shirts that say stuff like, “If You Can Read This, I Kicked His Ass.”
The reality is, he’s not just some bulked-up body with more brawn than brains. He’s articulate, thoughtful. And, he’s a man with a keen mind for business.
Surprising, when you consider he grew up the son of heroin addicts. During his most formative years, the family bounced around Orange County – from trailer park, to motel, to garage.
“I should either be dead or in jail,” he says. “A lot of kids who are in similar situations don’t have aspirations of a better life because they don’t have anybody to look up to.”
Ortiz is no role model, nor does he want to be. Everything about his life has been to the left of center – and it still is, only just a little less so. He’s been in a committed relationship with former adult film star Jenna Jameson for the past two years. Online news reports claim they’re expecting a child and that Jameson has said they have no immediate plans to marry.
But he’s a survivor. “I have an inspirational story,” he says. “I’ve succeeded through so many dark periods.”
Ortiz has been in and out juvenile detention centers and county jail. He got caught burglarizing cars and spent five days behind bars. He stole a bubble gum machine (a birthday present for his girlfriend), but later turned himself in. The court slapped him with a two-week sentence for felony theft. That he never spent time in prison for selling drugs – something he admits doing in his book – is nothing short of good luck. And he didn’t have much of that as a kid.
Jacob Christopher Ortiz was born Jan. 23, 1975. His father, Samuel, nicknamed him “Tito,” meaning tyrant, when he was a year old. His mom, Joyce, had three boys from an earlier marriage.
During Ortiz’s first few years of life, they lived as a happy, normal family – Dad went to work during the day and Mom stayed home with the children. They’d camp and spend long days at the beach. But pot was always present in the home.
“Sam and I were hippies. Stone hippies,” his mom writes in the book. “Marijuana was a very big part of our lifestyle. It was all about the herb.”
Before too long, his parents’ drug use had grown to include heroin. His father couldn’t keep a job, so he’d sell everything in sight (including Ortiz’s fishing poles), and when that was gone, he’d steal something to sell. And his mom, as Ortiz puts it, “became a lady of the evening.” (His mother contends she never turned tricks but admits to manipulating men to support her habit.)
Ortiz used, too. By the time he reached the seventh grade, he says, he was into cocaine and sniffing glue, and he’d also tried acid, PCP and mushrooms.
As his parents’ heroin addiction worsened, Ortiz spent more and more time on the streets.
“By the end of the first year of their addiction, it had gotten so bad at home that I did not want to be around my parents at all,” he writes. “Especially when they were high, which seemed to be all the time. I would come home from school, and as soon as they came home I would leave and go hang out with my friends or just wander the streets.”
His saving graces: a need to be the center of attention, his love of wrestling (as a boy, he’d spend hours in front of the TV watching the sport) and an innate entrepreneurial spirit. At 7 years old, he was conducting business – selling fish he caught off the Huntington Beach Pier for $5 each.
“Fishing was an escape,” he says. “And I think God gave me a conscience. I could have done a lot worse things as a kid. I had a good head on my shoulders, and that came from feeling like I was always trying to survive. My mom would feed me in the morning and then at night when she’d get home, but I’d be on my own all day.”
His parents divorced when Ortiz was 13, but the family was already fractured. His older brothers had been sent to live with a family friend several years earlier. But the split, he says, was probably the best thing his mother could have done. She wanted to get clean, he says, but his father didn’t.
“My dad quit on us as a family because of the drugs,” he says.
When he got to high school, Ortiz joined the wrestling team. It forced him to stay clean and out of trouble – at least during the school year. What he did during the summer is another story. After his sophomore year ended, he stole a car and spent part of his vacation in juvenile hall.
But he ended high school on a good note, as CIF champion, ranked No. 1 in the league and in the country.
His first few years out of high school were tough, though. He’d been kicked out of his home (his mom had remarried). He’d moved in with his girlfriend, Kristin (whom he later married, had a son with and then divorced).
He took odd jobs and did a lot of drugs. But he hit a turning point at 19, after bumping into one of his high school coaches, who encouraged him to enroll at Golden West College in Huntington Beach. (He could get back into wrestling.) His former coach offered to help him apply for financial aid. It forced Ortiz to do some soul searching. He remembers staring at himself in the bathroom mirror one morning and not liking what he saw: “I looked like a drug addict.”
So, he jumped at the chance, made the junior college’s wrestling team and later transferred to Cal State Bakersfield. His plan was to get a degree in physical education and become a wrestling coach. And then he was introduced to the world of mixed martial arts. He traveled the globe and became the face of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
While he may not be liked by everyone, most mixed martial arts, or MMA, aficionados agree, it’s largely because of Ortiz’s star power and bravado that this sport – once considered little more than a bloody underground pastime deserving of little attention and even less respect – now carries mainstream appeal.
The evidence: Just before his fight with Machida, the Los Angeles Times’ Dan Arritt credited Ortiz for the sport’s popularity. “With him, UFC events have been sellouts in Las Vegas,” Arritt writes. “With him, the UFC has had some of the most-watched pay-per-view events in its history. After tonight, the UFC will be without him. Maybe.”
Ortiz has been outspoken against the UFC and its president, Dana White, saying fighters are treated horribly. He says the promotion gets rich off of the fighters. Those at the top don’t get a fair percentage of profits, and those at the bottom are paid very little. While Ortiz makes a million a fight, others might only get $15,000 to $20,000.
The prospect of an even-more lucrative contract has blogosphere critics on a rampage, pointing out Ortiz’s recent losses, and saying he’s old (33) and washed up.
Others, like this blogger who posted on bloodyelbow.com, say it doesn’t matter: “Tito has been on ‘The Apprentice,’ and I think that did him some good in the eyes of MMA. He displayed on the show that fighters don’t have to be placed in the category of thugs and jocks.”
Still others say he ought to start his own promotion. And, Ortiz says, that’s not out of the realm of possibility.
“I have a business model in my head,” he says. “De la Hoya has done that with Golden Boy Promotions, and I’d like to do that for mixed martial arts. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that I was there training at his camp.” ocm
Back to top
Tito Ortiz at a glance
Full name: Jacob Christopher Ortiz
Nickname: “Tito,” meaning "tyrant," was given to him by his father when he was 1 year old.
Fighting moniker: The Huntington Beach Bad Boy
Height: 6 feet, 2 inches
Weight: 205 pounds
Nationality: Mexican-American
Born: January 23, 1975
Hometown: Huntington Beach
Team/Association: Team Punishment
Fighting Style: Wrestling, submission wrestling, Muay Thai
Tito's timeline
1975: Jacob “Tito” Ortiz is born on Jan. 23 in Huntington Beach.
1980: Ortiz is enrolled in John H. Eader Elementary School.
1982: The family has moved from Huntington to Santa Ana. Ortiz has been kicked out of Agnes L. Smith Elementary School in Huntington Beach and Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in Santa Ana.
1987: Ortiz engages in his first one-on-one street fight. He is 12 years old.
1988: The family moves back to Huntington Beach, and Ortiz attends Ethel R. Dwyer Middle School.
1989: Ortiz begins his freshman year at Huntington Beach High School. He joins the wrestling team and falls in love with the sport.
1993: Ortiz graduates high school and later enrolls at Golden West College. He joins the wrestling team.
1997: Ortiz makes his mixed martial arts debut.
2000: Ortiz marries Kristin, his first wife and mother to his son, Jacob. The
couple later divorces but remain close friends and business associates.
2006: Ortiz meets Jenna Jameson.
2008: Ortiz and Jameson live in Huntington Beach, where he runs his
clothing line, Punishment Athletics.
Tito’s entrance music
“Bad Boy for Life” by P. Diddy
“Mosh” by Eminem
“Break Stuff” by Limp Bizkit
“Rollin’” by Limp Bizkit
Tito’s many T-shirts
“If You Fight Tito Ortiz, You Lose”
“Punishing Him Into Retirement”
“I Did It My Way”
“Bad Boy for Life”
“Who’s Next”
“With Great Sacrifice Comes Great Rewards”
“I Just Killed Kenny, You Bastard”
“Thanks … U.S. Troops for Fighting for Our Country”
“Fighting for America”
“Bring Home Our Troops”
Championships and accolades
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight Champion
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
2002 Feud of the Year (vs. Ken Shamrock)
2006 Feud of the Year (vs. Ken Shamrock)
Fighting Spirit Magazine
2006 Fight of the Year (vs. Forrest Griffen)
2006 Golden Gloves
Film and TV appearances
2003: “Cradle 2 the Grave”
2004: “UFC 47L It’s On!”
2005: “Venice Underground”
2006: “Valley of the Wolves: Iraq”
2006: “The Dog Problem”
2007: “Numb3rs” (one episode, 2007)
2008: “Zombie Strippers”
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Readers Feedback:
I love this guy and really look up to him.......He is one of the best ever I just wish The UFC would see that!!And give him a little RESPECT because I think he deserves that.........
Comment at 9/24/2008
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Or, better yet, see what he is now: a multimillion-dollar brand. His last Ultimate Fighting Championship contract, which ended with the Machida bout, guaranteed him $1 million a match. Ortiz lost that last fight by decision, but it didn’t dull his marketability. At this magazine’s press time, he stood poised to make even more if he signed a “groundbreaking” contract with another mixed martial arts promotion, Affliction, with which Donald Trump is associated. But that’s not all. He also runs his own hugely successful clothing line, Punishment Athletics, a company he launched in 1999 with a $500 investment. He raises money for children’s charities. His autobiography, “This Is Gonna Hurt,” hit bookstores in June. He’s working on his own reality show. And then there was that stint on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” earlier this year. (He outlasted rock star Gene Simmons and made it through nine of the season’s 12 episodes.) There have been film and other TV appearances – Jeff Most, producer of “The Crow” television series, called Ortiz “the next Vin Diesel.” But in the brutal sport of mixed martial arts, Ortiz has a very different rep – a brute of a guy who talks serious trash about his opponents, often beats them into submission in a matter of seconds, then parades around the octagon in T-shirts that say stuff like, “If You Can Read This, I Kicked His Ass.” The reality is, he’s not just some bulked-up body with more brawn than brains. He’s articulate, thoughtful. And, he’s a man with a keen mind for business. Surprising, when you consider he grew up the son of heroin addicts. During his most formative years, the family bounced around Orange County – from trailer park, to motel, to garage. “I should either be dead or in jail,” he says. “A lot of kids who are in similar situations don’t have aspirations of a better life because they don’t have anybody to look up to.” Ortiz is no role model, nor does he want to be. Everything about his life has been to the left of center – and it still is, only just a little less so. He’s been in a committed relationship with former adult film star Jenna Jameson for the past two years. Online news reports claim they’re expecting a child and that Jameson has said they have no immediate plans to marry. But he’s a survivor. “I have an inspirational story,” he says. “I’ve succeeded through so many dark periods.” Ortiz has been in and out juvenile detention centers and county jail. He got caught burglarizing cars and spent five days behind bars. He stole a bubble gum machine (a birthday present for his girlfriend), but later turned himself in. The court slapped him with a two-week sentence for felony theft. That he never spent time in prison for selling drugs – something he admits doing in his book – is nothing short of good luck. And he didn’t have much of that as a kid. Jacob Christopher Ortiz was born Jan. 23, 1975. His father, Samuel, nicknamed him “Tito,” meaning tyrant, when he was a year old. His mom, Joyce, had three boys from an earlier marriage. During Ortiz’s first few years of life, they lived as a happy, normal family – Dad went to work during the day and Mom stayed home with the children. They’d camp and spend long days at the beach. But pot was always present in the home. “Sam and I were hippies. Stone hippies,” his mom writes in the book. “Marijuana was a very big part of our lifestyle. It was all about the herb.” Before too long, his parents’ drug use had grown to include heroin. His father couldn’t keep a job, so he’d sell everything in sight (including Ortiz’s fishing poles), and when that was gone, he’d steal something to sell. And his mom, as Ortiz puts it, “became a lady of the evening.” (His mother contends she never turned tricks but admits to manipulating men to support her habit.) Ortiz used, too. By the time he reached the seventh grade, he says, he was into cocaine and sniffing glue, and he’d also tried acid, PCP and mushrooms. As his parents’ heroin addiction worsened, Ortiz spent more and more time on the streets. “By the end of the first year of their addiction, it had gotten so bad at home that I did not want to be around my parents at all,” he writes. “Especially when they were high, which seemed to be all the time. I would come home from school, and as soon as they came home I would leave and go hang out with my friends or just wander the streets.” His saving graces: a need to be the center of attention, his love of wrestling (as a boy, he’d spend hours in front of the TV watching the sport) and an innate entrepreneurial spirit. At 7 years old, he was conducting business – selling fish he caught off the Huntington Beach Pier for $5 each. “Fishing was an escape,” he says. “And I think God gave me a conscience. I could have done a lot worse things as a kid. I had a good head on my shoulders, and that came from feeling like I was always trying to survive. My mom would feed me in the morning and then at night when she’d get home, but I’d be on my own all day.” His parents divorced when Ortiz was 13, but the family was already fractured. His older brothers had been sent to live with a family friend several years earlier. But the split, he says, was probably the best thing his mother could have done. She wanted to get clean, he says, but his father didn’t. “My dad quit on us as a family because of the drugs,” he says. When he got to high school, Ortiz joined the wrestling team. It forced him to stay clean and out of trouble – at least during the school year. What he did during the summer is another story. After his sophomore year ended, he stole a car and spent part of his vacation in juvenile hall. But he ended high school on a good note, as CIF champion, ranked No. 1 in the league and in the country. His first few years out of high school were tough, though. He’d been kicked out of his home (his mom had remarried). He’d moved in with his girlfriend, Kristin (whom he later married, had a son with and then divorced). He took odd jobs and did a lot of drugs. But he hit a turning point at 19, after bumping into one of his high school coaches, who encouraged him to enroll at Golden West College in Huntington Beach. (He could get back into wrestling.) His former coach offered to help him apply for financial aid. It forced Ortiz to do some soul searching. He remembers staring at himself in the bathroom mirror one morning and not liking what he saw: “I looked like a drug addict.” So, he jumped at the chance, made the junior college’s wrestling team and later transferred to Cal State Bakersfield. His plan was to get a degree in physical education and become a wrestling coach. And then he was introduced to the world of mixed martial arts. He traveled the globe and became the face of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. While he may not be liked by everyone, most mixed martial arts, or MMA, aficionados agree, it’s largely because of Ortiz’s star power and bravado that this sport – once considered little more than a bloody underground pastime deserving of little attention and even less respect – now carries mainstream appeal. The evidence: Just before his fight with Machida, the Los Angeles Times’ Dan Arritt credited Ortiz for the sport’s popularity. “With him, UFC events have been sellouts in Las Vegas,” Arritt writes. “With him, the UFC has had some of the most-watched pay-per-view events in its history. After tonight, the UFC will be without him. Maybe.” Ortiz has been outspoken against the UFC and its president, Dana White, saying fighters are treated horribly. He says the promotion gets rich off of the fighters. Those at the top don’t get a fair percentage of profits, and those at the bottom are paid very little. While Ortiz makes a million a fight, others might only get $15,000 to $20,000. The prospect of an even-more lucrative contract has blogosphere critics on a rampage, pointing out Ortiz’s recent losses, and saying he’s old (33) and washed up. Others, like this blogger who posted on bloodyelbow.com, say it doesn’t matter: “Tito has been on ‘The Apprentice,’ and I think that did him some good in the eyes of MMA. He displayed on the show that fighters don’t have to be placed in the category of thugs and jocks.” Still others say he ought to start his own promotion. And, Ortiz says, that’s not out of the realm of possibility. “I have a business model in my head,” he says. “De la Hoya has done that with Golden Boy Promotions, and I’d like to do that for mixed martial arts. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that I was there training at his camp.” ocm Back to top Tito Ortiz at a glance Full name: Jacob Christopher Ortiz Nickname: “Tito,” meaning "tyrant," was given to him by his father when he was 1 year old. Fighting moniker: The Huntington Beach Bad Boy Height: 6 feet, 2 inches Weight: 205 pounds Nationality: Mexican-American Born: January 23, 1975 Hometown: Huntington Beach Team/Association: Team Punishment Fighting Style: Wrestling, submission wrestling, Muay Thai Tito's timeline 1975: Jacob “Tito” Ortiz is born on Jan. 23 in Huntington Beach. 1980: Ortiz is enrolled in John H. Eader Elementary School. 1982: The family has moved from Huntington to Santa Ana. Ortiz has been kicked out of Agnes L. Smith Elementary School in Huntington Beach and Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in Santa Ana. 1987: Ortiz engages in his first one-on-one street fight. He is 12 years old. 1988: The family moves back to Huntington Beach, and Ortiz attends Ethel R. Dwyer Middle School. 1989: Ortiz begins his freshman year at Huntington Beach High School. He joins the wrestling team and falls in love with the sport. 1993: Ortiz graduates high school and later enrolls at Golden West College. He joins the wrestling team. 1997: Ortiz makes his mixed martial arts debut. 2000: Ortiz marries Kristin, his first wife and mother to his son, Jacob. The couple later divorces but remain close friends and business associates. 2006: Ortiz meets Jenna Jameson. 2008: Ortiz and Jameson live in Huntington Beach, where he runs his clothing line, Punishment Athletics. Tito’s entrance music “Bad Boy for Life” by P. Diddy “Mosh” by Eminem “Break Stuff” by Limp Bizkit “Rollin’” by Limp Bizkit Tito’s many T-shirts “If You Fight Tito Ortiz, You Lose” “Punishing Him Into Retirement” “I Did It My Way” “Bad Boy for Life” “Who’s Next” “With Great Sacrifice Comes Great Rewards” “I Just Killed Kenny, You Bastard” “Thanks … U.S. Troops for Fighting for Our Country” “Fighting for America” “Bring Home Our Troops” Championships and accolades Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight Champion Wrestling Observer Newsletter 2002 Feud of the Year (vs. Ken Shamrock) 2006 Feud of the Year (vs. Ken Shamrock) Fighting Spirit Magazine 2006 Fight of the Year (vs. Forrest Griffen) 2006 Golden Gloves Film and TV appearances 2003: “Cradle 2 the Grave” 2004: “UFC 47L It’s On!” 2005: “Venice Underground” 2006: “Valley of the Wolves: Iraq” 2006: “The Dog Problem” 2007: “Numb3rs” (one episode, 2007) 2008: “Zombie Strippers” Back to top |
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Digg This ArticleReaders Feedback:
I love this guy and really look up to him.......He is one of the best ever I just wish The UFC would see that!!And give him a little RESPECT because I think he deserves that.........
| Comment at 9/24/2008 |
