Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports is reporting that Tito Ortiz will now face Forrest Griffin at UFC 106. Griffin is a replacement for Mark Coleman who had to drop out of the bout due to injury.
Tito Ortiz will face a stern test in his first match in the Ultimate Fighting Championship since undergoing back surgery Oct. 6, 2008, when he takes on Forrest Griffin at UFC 106 on Nov. 21 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
Ortiz, who last fought at UFC 84 on May 24, 2008, when he lost a decision to Lyoto Machida, had been slated to face Mark Coleman. But Coleman had to withdraw from the bout Monday after suffering a second-degree tear of the medial collateral ligament in his knee.
The UFC had to scramble to find a replacement because most of the stars at 205 pounds are booked. But UFC president Dana White confirmed to Yahoo! Sports on Thursday that Griffin had accepted the bout.
Payout Perspective:
The popularity of Brock Lesnar alone was probably going to be enough to push UFC 106 into the 800,000 buy territory, but the addition of Ortiz, and now Griffin, may well give the UFC its third 1 million+ buyrate of the year.
I think it’s now fair – if it wasn’t before – to look at UFC 106 as the keystone to the organization’s continued success through the fourth quarter and into the New Year. If the UFC can give the event the proper promotion it deserves, a good result will more than likely create a tidal wave effect for future events in the immediate term.
We saw how the coverage and build-up of UFC 100 led to a surprise result for UFC 101 (it’s happened at other points in the UFC’s history as well). That same effect could very well occur for the TUF 10 Finale and the much-maligned UFC 107 that is now without Rampage vs. Rashad.
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