Tito Ortiz vs. "Babalu" Sobral, Pedro Rizzo vs. Paul Buentello Possible for Affliction 2

Credit bloodyelbow.com


Sources have told Yahoo! Sports that free agent Tito Ortiz will fight Renato "Babalu" Sobral in the co-main event at Affliction's next fight card, on Oct. 11 at the Thomas & Mack Center on the UNLV campus in Las Vegas. The main event will feature a heavyweight bout between WAMMA champion Fedor Emelianenko and Andrei Arlovski.

Affliction vice president Tom Atencio would not confirm the Ortiz-Babalu fight. He said details for the fight card will be released during an Aug. 6 news conference that most likely will be held in Las Vegas.

Atencio also indicated that he didn't think Affliction could speak with Ortiz until Aug. 4 because of a 60-day non-compete clause in Ortiz's UFC contract. Ortiz's last fight for UFC was on May 24 at UFC 84. If the 60-day clause is accurate, the deal ended last weekend. Atencio said the biggest stumbling block for an Ortiz deal would be the financial terms.

Over in the FanPosts, reader smoogy notes the potential PPV boon that could come along with the Ortiz signing, with figures for Tito's last five UFC fights courtesy of MMAPayout and Dave Meltzer:

UFC 59 - Ortiz v. Griffin - 425,000
UFC 61 - Ortiz v. Shamrock II - 775,000
UFC 66 - Liddell v. Ortiz - 1,050,000
UFC 73 - Ortiz v. Evans - 425,000
UFC 84 - Ortiz v. Machida - 475,000-525,000

Average: 635,000

Meanwhile, Brazilian heavyweight Pedro Rizzo spoke to Tatame.com about his knockout loss at the hands of Josh Barnett on the first Affliction bill, and stated that he expects to be back in action for the October 11th show:


Pedro Rizzo’s debute on Affliction wasn’t the way he was expecting. After ten months away from fighting, the Brazilian fighter felt a little the time but didn’t searched for excuses to explain the loss. "It was my fault. I did everything right, trained hard, but didn’t used it on the fight, I got stucked on the ring. I believe it’s because of the ten months without fighting, but I don’t have excuses. I was trained, ready, but didn’t fought well", said Rizzo, that will fight again at Affliction’s second show. "I’ll fight at October 11th, but I don’t know whom yet. They (Affliction) talked about Paul Buentello, but there’s nothing right yet", finished the athlete, that is back on trainings for his next fight.