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[Cromm]

On the 30th of December, Tito Ortiz lost by technical knockout to Chuck Liddell after taking a merciless series of series of punches in the fight for the UFC middleweight belt. Almost one month later, the fighter decided to blame the Brazilian arbiter Mario Yamasaki for the defeat. According to Tito, Mario interrupted the battle prematurely at 3 min 49 seconds of the third round.

“This was the greatest fight in history, and I think it was stopped prematurely. I’m not a guy who cries or makes excuses. But I think John McCarthy is the best referee we have and this was the biggest fight and I don’t understand why he didn’t do this fight. He would have let the fight go on longer, I believe. If I had known that he (Yamasaki) was going to stop it, I would have fought a little harder to get out of there at that point.

The Brazilian arbiter’s version you can find only in January’s NOCAUTE, at newsstands in Brazil.

This was from the Graciemag.com. I cant believe Tito would blame both Yamasaki for calling the fight, and Big John for not reffing the fight for his loss. He got pummeled.

[Malice]

"I’m not a guy who cries or makes excuses. "

[Highlander]

Yamasaki did stop the fight too early. At the end, chuck only got like two punches in on his head, the rest got his shoulder and forearm. Of course yamasaki stopped it early, he's got a track record of it. Remember AA beating Cabbage, Cabbage got and fell on his back and Yama stopped it right away. Joe Rogan was freaking out. It is dumb that ortiz is bitching about it now because after the fight someone asked him if it was stopped prematurely and he said Yama did what he thought was right.
Tito would not have fought harder because he is scared of chuck. I actually thought that this fight could go either way, but now I think that Chuck would win 100% of the time. Big John should have reffed that, anybody else wouldn't look right

[Thebestever]

You know the game plan for Tito was pretty smart, get Chuck to the later rounds and see if you can inflict some damage. Im not gonna go out on a limb and say the stoppage was premature, but hey if you can convince yourself of something so much why not right?

[Dork8503]

that interview is a load of shit, first it was for the lhw title, second tito didnt want john to do the fight, so who ever wrote the article is a moron. Tito wasnt hurt when they stoped the fight but he made the mistake of turning he knew it chuck knew it and mario knew it, thats why he stoped the fight.

[Soul_Edge]

Tito was done. The only way it looked like he was ready to start avoiding was because Chuck quit since Yamasaki stopped it. Quit your bitching Tito, and fuck Jenna Jameson some more. And while you are at it get ready for your fight with Dana.

[Dr. MMA]

Honestly, when I was watching the fight and when the fight got stopped, I was quite surprised. You can even hear Randy Couture saying "he's not hurting him, he's hitting his arms mostly, he is not hurting him here" and then the fight got stopped as soon as couture was saying that.

Also, a split second before yamasaki waved his arms to stop the fight, you see ortiz actually getting up. Watch carefully, it was before he stopped it.

Plus, a different referee might have made a different decision, just because you rolled your leg over does not mean you are not intelligently defending yourself. Tito's forearms and elbows were clearly covering his face. So the fight was stopped prematurely.

However, Tito didn't complain at the end (which surprised me), so he probably thought it was fair, so if a fighter doesnt make a big deal about it at the time of the fight, it wont be that controversial.

[Ubermensch]

That doesn't make sense before the fight he said he "didn't "want BJM and asked specificly not to have him judge the fight???

[subman]

I saw it two ways:

1. The fight was stopped too quickly. Watch the very end and you can see it was a premature stoppage.

2. Tito should be thankful it was stopped too early, because Chuck was going to obliterate him.

[DW]

going fetal will get it stopped every time, we all have seen it a thousand times. tito needs to quit his cryin and admit he is a 1 dimensional fighter who was simply outmatched.