Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Tito Ortiz On His Legendary Career & His Rivalries With Ken Shamrock, Chuck Liddell & Dana White

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

Tito Ortiz (@titoortiz) is a professional mixed martial artist and a UFC Hall Of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at his house in Huntington Beach to talk about his legendary career and his rivalries with opponents like Ken Shamrock, Chuck Liddell and Guy Mezger, how he got started in UFC, the regrets he has about his relationship with UFC President Dana White, why he wants to have one more match at Freedom Fight Night, his WWE tryout, how he came up with his iconic gravedigger celebration taunt, how being a father has changed him and much more. For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are going. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Bleas! So good to see you, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure here on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet, and for this one, we had the honor of being invited to Tito Ortiz's beautiful house in Huntington Beach, California. Beautiful inside and out. And that's where we sat down for this interview. We did it outside by the water, and I say that because

there may be a moment or two where you hear a helicopter flying by or a boat driving by. And since this is just the audio, you're not watching this on YouTube, I just want to put that out there. So when it does happen, you can go, oh, it all makes sense now. But what a career Tito Ortiz has had, and he just celebrated 25 years since making his debut. So there's a lot to cover here. From the amazing rivalries he had in UFC, his relationship with Dana White, and some of the some of the regrets he has around that, a tryout he had with WWE,

and also just the father that Tito Ortiz is. And it's so interesting seeing that side of him. So if you enjoy this conversation and you're an MMA fan, go and check out some of our previous episodes for interviews with people like Frank Meir, Chuck Liddell, Boz Routin, Paige Van Zant, Randy Couture, Steepa Miochich, Stefan Bonner, and Sugar Sean O'Malley. just to name half a dozen or so.

And please share this episode with someone who you know is going to love this. I'm sure you know a Tito Ortiz fan or two or ten. And take a screenshot so we can share it and tag us. Tito is at Tito Ortiz on Twitter. I'm at Chris Van Vleet. And here we go. Cue that transition sound effect because it's me and the UFC Hall of Famer, Tito Ortiz.

This is a beautiful place. Thank you so much. to your home. No, you're very welcome, man. You know, this is the American dream. As they said, American dream's dead. That was a lie. It's still alive. And thriving, you just got to work for it. And, you know, after 25 years, I've been very fortunate. I'm going to say fortunate. I worked really, really hard. This is pretty good for a guy who punches people in the face for a living. Yeah, well, you know, we had a good business savvy. I think that's very important. You know, you got to think about the ending game. I thought about the ending game when I was

in my 20s when I was world champ, you know, I wanted to understand what was the next step after fighting. What am I going to get into? You know, is it a promotion? You know, is it commentating? Is it owning businesses? And I think of just kind of tapping into each one, you know, a lot of people, they have a plan B. I don't have a plan B. Why it's plan A every single time, you know, I just keep pushing, keep working and chase this American dream. It's important. You mentioned 25 years, May 30th was the 25 year anniversary. Yeah, yeah. Did you do anything special that day? Um, not too special. You know, a few of my buddies, you know, special force guys, we got to party, have a bunch of shots,

and I really don't remember the end of the night. Sounds like a good night then. Yeah, we had fun. We got home safe. Of course, I had a designated driver, but it's just one of those things that I look back on it, and I'm just thankful I have the fans I have. I love each and every one of them,

even the ones that do hate me. I'm fortunate because you got the haters and you got the lovers, and the scariest thing is have ones that don't talk about you at all. And I've understood that from day one for my career, at least, in fighting. When you talk about having a plan moving forward for what you were going to do after fighting, when did that really begin for you? God, I think about it. I would say watching other boxers that were multi-millionaires and all of a sudden they had nothing.

What am I going to do to make sure I make the right decisions for the future? Not just for me, for my kids. And when I had my first son Jacob, who's 20 now, is at ASU University, on the wrestling team on a full ride, I that's what kind of scared me of knowing that it's not just about me anymore about my family you know I have twin boys now Jesse and Journey who are 13 they've been homeschooled the last two days but I want to be there as a present father I mean I didn't have my father my father chose drugs over me and it was it was sad but I was not going to be a victim and I planned to be a victor so I worked my butt off and make it happen that audio is

horrible it's okay the helicopter whatever this is yeah it should be a helicopter it is a helicopter. Yeah. Yep. Yep. I feel like you got into UFC at like the exact perfect time. Like life is all about timing. If you were five years earlier, we wouldn't be sitting here right now, I don't think. Yeah, we would. Yeah? I had big dreams at a really, really young age. And this is kind of weird. So when I was, it's probably about seven, eight, nine in those years, I'd have dreams of being on red carpets of people taking pictures of me and saying, Tito, this way, this way, this way. And back Then they didn't have red carpets. And so I, maybe this was kind of either God or just, you know, my personal stuff

preparing me for what's going to happen in the future. And as I got old, there were things just really didn't come easy. They came as the harder I worked, the easier they were. But I worked really hard. You're very diligent. I just, you know, just time consuming the things I put into is just eat, sleep, train, repeat. That's exactly what I did during my fight years.

But, you know, before that, I knew there was something I was going to do. It was going to be a professional wrestler, a professional boxer. and all of a sudden, by accident, this mixed martial arts came about. And I fought in UFC 13, like you said, May 30, 1997. I fought for free as an amateur. No UFC fighter in history, and you can look that up. No UFC fighter in history has ever fought for free. And I did it just to kind of test myself to see how good I truly can be.

You know, being a JC Junior College State Champion and wrestling 190 pounds. They made a weight class back then, was middleweight, was 199. I thought I'd give it a try, you know. I was training with Tank Abbott, who fought in the UFC at the time. And I was like, let's give us a try. I called him up. A tank, you can give me a fight? He was like, you want to fight?

Yeah, no, I want to just see how good I am. So I fought May 30th, 1997. I stopped my first guy in 22 seconds. I visualized myself from the finals, and the guy who made to the finals, incident in a way, he ended up getting hurt. And I was the replacement. I was beating Guy Metzger,

and then they separated us to the back on her feet, and I had it in a dominant position. I cut them with a big cut. I hit them with a big shot, cut them. And they restarted our feet. I went to go for a take down. I got caught in a guillotine. I didn't know what that was at that time.

I didn't do much to Jitsu and maybe white belt stuff. And I had a tap, but I was hooked. I loved it. You know, I was a kid growing up on the streets, parents not being around me that much. I was always dying for attention. And the attention was there of fans going, hey, and you have an autograph.

And I didn't realize what I was getting myself into. but it's come to realize that this is going to be the making of Tito-O-R-Tos. What was the conversation like before you went to UFC? So you asked a tank Abbott, can I go there and have a fight? What's the conversation you look like after that when UFC is actually signing you to do this? I was really nervous, really nervous. There's a little fear in my heart because my high school wrestling coach, Paul Herrera, who fought Gary Goodrich, fought him, I think three UFC prior to that got caught.

and crucifix and got elbowed me got knocked out and they had to do a skull reconstruction on his cheek and that put fear in my heart realizing that you can get seriously injured doing the sport yeah but that was what lit the fire under my ass i kind of was like you know what i better train hard yeah better train hard as i possibly can you know i was training three times a day six days a week and i was doing as much as i possibly could to prepare for a fight so when i did come about uh may 30th i had that mentality in my mind is like, uh, got to be a shark

and don't stop moving. And the cage and people watch me pace back and forth. And that's my mentality is be a shark. You know, um,

eat before you be eating. When you talk about visualization, what specifically does it look like for you? Um, visualization is really huge for me because I understood this is, as a wrestler, you know,

our coach with citizen, a wrestling room, turn off all the lights and they're saying, all right, you guys are warming up. And we would just do this mentally. We'd go warm up, close your eyes.

Be warming up, all right, doing our shots, doing this takedowns. All right. First period. start, boom, go, what happens? In my mind, I'm going for the takedown or he shoots a shot and I'm trying to defend it.

And I'm going through a situation in my mind without even doing interphysical stuff at all. It's all, you know, psychological things that I put myself through. I've highly known of getting taken down or coming back in reversal, getting back on our feet. I get the takedown. Ten seconds left, I got a push, push, look for the takedown. I get a take down. My arm being raised. Well, I contributed that right into mixed martial arts.

When I got into it was I would sit there the night before the fight. I would sit in my room. I'd shut the lights off. and I'd hear the first guy be announced to walk out then I'd visualize myself walking out and the fans screaming and you know Bruce Buffer seeing my name

and looking across at the guy and John McCarthy stepped in the middle saying are you ready? Oh, you ready? Let's get it on and go through the whole fight. I get hit with a shot and how am I going to react? I hit him with a shot, how am I going to react? And these are the type of things that I've done through my whole career.

I mean, even life in general, every day of just walking around other people, someone came up to me and try to start a fight. How am I going to react to it? You know, and these are things are just life lessons that I've learned. I'm able to hand these down to my children also. I can't just be fighting, though. I'm sure you visualize in other aspects, like when your sons were born or things like that.

Yeah, when my sons are born or, you know, how about challenging days of getting through training and how am I going to get through it? You know, and just take one day at a time and just take it, you know, day by day, week by week, month by month. With my kids, you know, my kids ask me one question, how am I going to respond that way? If I respond one way, what would be better if I respond this way? And that's one of the things I've learned is, you know, always respond somebody in a positive manner. Yeah. Because if you get them in a positive manner, it usually throws people off. Yeah.

Because most of the time people want them to have, not have, but they get a negative response or something like that. Then their automatic defense mode comes up. And I think that's one of the things that I've learned through my life is a lot of fans who come up to me. And they're very hands-on, you know, like, oh, my God, Tito T's T's and grab onto me. And it's like, hey, bro, I got my personal space, chill. And the guy's like, oh, you're a dick anyway. I was like, okay, cool. That's your belief.

Oh, yeah, guys. You're saying, oh, you look big and bad and, you know, that tough. But you do look big and bad. You're correct. I'm not. And I play with it. But I really just kill them with kindness. And I think it's important.

You know, I'm not an aggressive person. You know, I wasn't a person I really loved a fight. What I love to was compete. I love to compete. Like I said, I'm not a vicious guy. I don't like to beat people up. It's not something that I enjoy doing, but something that I got paid really well doing. What was the first thing you competed at?

What was your first sport? First sport in competition was wrestling. Yeah, my freshman year. I walked into the wrestling room at Huntington High, and I asked, where's the ring at? The coach laughed at me. Big WWF fan. Oh, huge.

Colgan, you know, say your prayers, take your vitamins, brother, you know, Tito Santana, macho man, Randy Savage, the ultimate warrior. Back in the day, that was stuff that I thought it was real. I mean, until I got into wrestling,

I realized that there was the difference. But then, you know, fast forwarded 26 years later, I end up going to the WWF of a training facility and worked for them for two weeks. And I got to see how hard it truly was. It's real. People say it's not real. You know what?

The outcomes is not real. It's pre-determined. But the stuff they go through is there are true athletes. I have respect with each and every one of them for what they've done. But I've kind of found a happy meeting with mixed martial arts with myself, you know, between boxing, Amamad Ali and Hulk Hogan and WWF. And I got to have that same aspect with mixed martial arts. And, you know, I was, people called cockiness.

I call it confidence. Bleach blonde hair, you know, flames on my shorts. I had that little niche that people were attracted to. I feel like that's one of the reasons that you were so popular in UFC because not only were you an athlete, not only were you finishing fights, but you were personality. Yeah. And they were like starving for that at that time. At that time, they didn't really have that.

They had a little bit out of Tank, but Tank wasn't a guy that really trained super hard, you know. You always look for, you know, escape routes. With me, I had the championship mentality came from wrestling. of hard work, dedication, sacrifice, you know, discipline, the things that life's about. This is how life is. And it's like either you're going to be a victim or are you going to be a victor? And I just prevailed. You know, I work super, super hard.

And now my kids see how I work. And I'm fortunate that I've fought for as long as I have because my kids have watched me evolved, not just as a fighter, but, you know, as a businessman, as a father, and as a man in general because I'm handing these down to my kids, just the sacrifice and discipline that I've had through my career. I want to say when we walked in here, both of your kids got up off the couch, walked right over, nice to meet you on journey. Like, like, you're raising gentlemen. That's my goal. I'm not raising kids. I'm not raising boys. We have our kid time. You know, we just went to Magic Mountain last week for Father's Day. I'm raising men. And it's important because a mirror of

myself is my children. And I want people to respect me and I want my kids have respect that I have. And it's important because I was just, David before yesterday, I was at lunch. And I met one of their friends' father and mother, and they walked up and like, your kids are real gentlemen. I'm like, thank you. And that's the, I mean, I got to say, that's the biggest thing in the world, just to have parents reach out to me and saying that I'm doing a great job as a father because I never had a handbook.

I understand a little bit when I was in college, you know, child development, but I never understood how to be a father because I never had one. I never understood, you know, what was the right way. to do it every single day. I understood from right and wrong, and then it comes to realize that, you know, I had to use common sense at the end of the day to raise my children right, and I want them to be respected. Who was the father figure for you? For you?

Father figure for me, wow. I had a couple, you know, I had a teacher, Tom Weinam from Huntington Beach High who helped me out during high school a lot. Prior to that, there was a couple guys that I fished with a lot down Newport Beach. But it was just little small things that I took from each person. You know, I really didn't have a solid one all the time. You know, I had a stepdad in high school time, who always told me, you know, no, no, no, no, no, don't do this, don't do that.

But it was never a positive, you know, like grab a hold of you and hug you and say, I love you, son, I'm proud of you. I never had that. Yeah. And I don't make sure my kids don't miss that. Yeah. All the time I grab and say, I love you, I'm proud of you, no matter what they do. It's something that I think human nature needs, especially as men.

They need that. And there's that time and space where it's either hard love or it's just straight love that you've got to give to your child. And like I say, being a parent is very difficult. it's not easy, but it's my choice. I want them on this earth. They didn't want them on here. I want them here. So I got to be responsible

and make sure I do the right things, like I say, to build the next generation of the Ortiz. And I'm happy because the kids are doing damn well when they're straight A students. My oldest is ASU. It makes me really happy. Do we have a future UFC champion?

No, he's actually, I would say a lot smarter than me in business. So he's a business major right now. And he goes, dad, I'm going to be, I'll be an attorney for, the fighters or I'll be a manager for the fighters and then I have my twins Jesse and Journey and Journey and journeys like dad I'm gonna be a champion like you and he already takes you just in wrestling right now but his brother Jesse he's like dad I'm gonna be Journey's attorney

he actually just started actually he starts next week um he starts uh was it uh elementary law school um it starts from 12 to 18 what yeah he wanted to do it he found he looks as um they've been in homeschooled now for the last two years he's like dad I see this online law school classes that I can take. If I get straight A's and I save the money, can I do it? I was like, if you get straight A, I'll pay for it. No worries. It's $180 per semester.

But still, given that opportunity, just kind of give them to understand what's going on just in the basics, the basic fundamentals of it. That's a really interesting point, like, because when you can give your kids everything, how do you pull back on that? See, now this is one of the things that people, I mean, and I get with the government, or how can I say this to politically correct way? Over the last 30 years, what they have done to this country is soften everybody.

And a lot of parents have fell for it by doing iPads, cell phones, video games, and that's their getaway from any time. And it's kind of harsh to say it that way, but I want to be a parent that's responsible for my kids in their future. So I'm able to make sure their education is important and work hard for the things they have.

I don't give them everything, but they can have everything. When they get straight A's, they can do what they want. But that guy gets straight A's. They got to make sure they have chores. They got to make sure their beds made. Their clothes can get washed, but get the pile. We put it under bed. So you've got to fold your laundry, put it away.

Any dishes that they cook with, they clean their dishes, they put them away. And this is responsibilities. Like I say, I'm building men. I'm not going to do everything for them. You know, my wife, Amber, she's not going to do everything for them. We'll set them up for it, but they got to finish it. And now it's got to a problem. point now where, you know, I can leave for a day or two and I don't have to worry about it.

You know, they know they know to keep the doors locked. You know, they have, they have a cell phone and they can only use a cell phone to call back and forth to us. But they're able to get their time by working for it. I want to make sure everybody's not giving for them. Because I mean, I financially, I can give them wherever they want. They've never had a cell phone today. They have a cell phone from where a way I would give them to them just so we stay in contact. But I mean, since four years old, they never had a cell phone. They ever had an iPad. Nothing like that. I want to make sure they understand, as you've seen how they get off the chair and introduce themselves. I want them to be socially acceptable to other people.

Yeah. And to understand, I go, wow, these kids are actually very well-mannered. It's like, see, son, that's your character. How do you want to build your character? And then the games they play, they're like, I don't want the fastest, strongest, smartest guy. I go, well, that's you. That's what you need to do. Yeah. So they understand they could correlate the differences between those two. I would say that a lot of UFC fans will argue that you were certainly not a gentleman when it came to your promos.

Yeah, you know, a lot of that came to marketing. No, it just came to marketing. I understand marketing. You know, either I'm going to have guys who hate me or love me. When they stopped talking about me, it was when I worried. And that never really happened because it was either someone talking smack on me or people love him because he understood how I was. At the end of the day, when it came to being in a cage, it was never about the fans.

It was about the fighter who was fighting against. And fans took a personal of what I would say about that guy. There was three rules of rule of, you know, trash talk. They'll talk about a family. They'll talk about their religion. Don't talk about their country. Everything beyond that is free game. I look at a lot of trash talk now and they break all those rules.

Break all those rules. But once again, it's karma and it always comes back and they end up losing. And there's a lot of things. Like I say, man, I'm not a big church-going guy. I believe in God. You know, Jesus was a man just like the rest of us who was to try to spread the word that we're trying to spread for our humanity to keep humanity safe. but at the end of the day, karma is number one.

You know, the way you treat somebody is the way you're going to be treated. If you're an asshole to someone, it's going to come back to you. Yeah. You know, if you treat someone like shit, it's going to come back to you. You know, and as a kid, I used to steal because I didn't have the things that other kids had and my parents weren't there for me, so that's all I understood. And as I got a little older, you know, I graduated high school, I kind of realized that the things that I sold, all of a sudden, all the stuff that I had

was getting sold in the same way. Karma comes full circle in life all the time. And like I say, every day I lay my bed, I put my head down, I could be happy to the things I've done. You know, when I look in the mirror and I brush my teeth, I got answered myself. I don't have a big entourage by me. And all my fans know, they never seem with a big entourage. You know, maybe when I was the world champ and I had, you know, 10 of my close friends. You know, now my circle's a lot smaller.

But I really have four quarters than a hundred pennies. It's just one of those things. I'm very fortunate. At the end of the day, I look at it and I got to have integrity for myself. I got a respect for myself, and I got to respect people the same way. It really seemed like Ken Shamrock took the trash talk personally. Like, that seemed like really personal. That was personal for both of us.

I think that was the only... Even after the fight was over? After the third fight was over, we got a little kosher towards each other. Then look, a few years later on, we met each other a couple times, and we're cool. We're good. You know, we hashed it out and it was good. You know, I think about it, and I think that was the only trilogy that I did for UFC, that was true. It was honest.

The Chuck one wasn't? Yeah, that was all. fabrication of the U.S.C. And I, when you have two guys who were friends and stayed at the same home together, he stayed at my house, I stayed at his house, and we were team punishment. I mean, there was a t-shirt of both of us on our hands crossed next to the shirt, the same team punishment on it. But when it came down to money, he sold himself out.

And I want to say, I get it, but I don't get it because, you know, I tried to make sure that any friends that are around me, I treated them like family. and he came to a point where he sold out. And instead of making 10 to 20 million, he got an extra million after he beat me the second time. And like I say, I'm not crying over spilled milk. It is where it is. It's behind me.

My life's forward. And I'm fortunate to be where I am right now. And I'm just happy if my kids are happy. And they come up to me every day and saying, Dad, I love you. I'm proud of you. So that makes all the difference in the world. Still talk to Chuck at all?

Not much. I think the last time I had seen him, in Vegas and it was just more, hey, what's up, hey, what's up? And no more than that. Yeah, what about Ken Shamrock? Shamrock, I haven't talked to him. Gosh, in six years, I think, about six years. Who's your closest friend within fighting?

Rampage and René Gator. Okay. Me and Randy Gator are pretty close, so inside joke, he's my dad. So I was at an event in Nashville, Tennessee, and we do waiting for wishes where we go and we serve the public. They buy a table, and we're trying to raise money and so forth for it. We went out the night before. I went to a bar,

drinking and everything, and some, you know, pretty cute chick was walking up to us, and he's all, is okay if I take a picture with you and your dad? Come on.

Yes, you can't. Hey, dad. And he's like, looking at me, like, what the hell are you talking about? God, Dad, come here, come here. He's like, what,

you know what? She said she wants to take a picture with me and my dad. He's like, oh, you fuck. So that was an inside joke. But, you know, another one is Rampage.

Rampage is a close friend of mine. You know, I've known him now since It's 1998. And we go way back, and he's like a brother to me, man. He's a good dude, hardworking guy, got kids, family men also. We just did an event, of course, freedom fight night. We coached against each other, and we trash talks back and forth.

But he's a good dude. He was a good heart, and he's a really awesome guy also. I think the one thing I'll ever forget from the Ken Shamrock trilogy is Tito Ortiz is a punk. I was like played right before Ken Shamrock came out. Yeah, and I remember. Warm it, not warm it, I was just like kind of shaking it out before the fight. I looked at my scene and I was like, oh, this guy. I think it repeated three times.

Titori is a punk. Yeah, like four times, I think. But I think it got me on my toes, you know. First time was the first time we fought. And at that point, it was like, I was intimidated by him. I really, I was the champion, but still I was intimidated by him because I was King Chamrock, the World's Most Dangerous Man. Yeah.

And then after when the first little exchange happened, I was like, oh, I'm going to smash this guy. Because, you know, he did have the big bulk on him, but, you know, that's superficial. I got the hole in it was, like, squeezing a turnip. It was just like, I latched on them. And I got wrestling strength. I mean, I don't use a PED or steroid thing. I kept away from that because I want to have, you know, a longevity in my career, and I've understood that. I saw a lot of guys do the TRT, and, you know, they look like they're 60 years old now.

And I think that that really speeds up the aging process in your body, and I've understood that, you know, be a physical education major. I've understood that. And I was like, you know what, I got to keep away from that because I want my body to last a long time. And, you know, I'm 47. And I feel like I'm like 35. You look great. No, I feel, I feel amazing. It's just one of those things that I just got to make sure I keep on the upkeep of my body.

You know, eat clean, train at least four times a week. Right now I just picked it up last week. So I do five times until about two more weeks and then I'll do six times a week. You think you got another fight in you? I do have another fight in you. I do have another fight me. I'll be fighting again. I'll be fighting.

Hopefully I'll be fighting for a freedom of fight night. You know, let's see. goes after that. You know, Randy Couture fought until he was 48 years old. And I just, I love the competition. I love getting in a cage and competing against another man.

I love just seeing the process of my body just going through phases of, you know, going from kind of pudgy, a little fat to being shredded in physique shape. We're just like, holy shit, that guy's in shape.

You know, I just fought. I was in 2019, and I think that's the best I've ever looked, but I put it in a 20-week camp and I got the most out of it. I got the best. The fighting lasted around, choked him unconscious.

Alberta del Rio. A real. A real. A real. A big wrestling fan here. Yeah, yeah. We speak very openly about that. Yeah, so we fought for belts.

I put my belt on the line, UFC belt, against the W.W.E. belt. And you're the WWE champ. Yeah, I got it. And I told my kids I was going to win it for them. My kids are huge fans of WWE. And when I brought the, they came to the fight with me,

and they walked out with me. And I told them I'd give them an extra $50,000 if you made it past the first round. And we got about two minutes into the round. I was like, okay, time to turn it up right now. and I ended up taking him down and getting his back and choking him and I got the belt. It looked like you put him in that rear, rear naked, almost a little too easy.

Yeah, and I think he, I think, he trained with Ryan Bader and CB Dollarway in Arizona, and I called Ryan, because I know Ryan, we fought against each other, and I asked my girl, how's he doing? So just train, does Tito just train. He was just train as hard as you can. He goes, you won't have a problem.

And then that kind of gave a little more motivation. I was like, all right, cool. And I did, like I said, I put in 20 weeks. the longest camp in my life. It was hard. It was grinding, grueling. We sparred a lot, a lot of wrestling, a lot of jitsu. I was doing 18 miles of bike with 30 flights of stairs in between that 18 miles and getting it down to about 42 minutes. So my cardio was just impeccable. The things that I did for that camp, I wish I would have done earlier in my career, but I can realize now that my body can sustain a lot of damage and I can push through it.

The United States Soccer Federation presents the U.S. Soccer Podcast. and I'm joined by my co-host, Megan Klinenberg. And now we're giving people an inside look at the World Cup. Time's ticking. I think you can feel the intensity. All the guys are wanting to really take their claim, and they want to be on that World Cup roster. There's no doubt about it.

Hosting the World Cup on the home soil comes with its pressures, but we're just really excited just as the people are. The U.S. Soccer podcast, presented by Henco. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. I now live in California. I've been here for two years. I first found out about Big Bear because of you and your training camps. Yeah, that's hell.

Now it's like a getaway for me. Yeah, so we went up there just right before the winter ended, and took my kids snowboarding, and I was getting flashbacks to how horrible it used to be up there. Because it's like the elevations were like 8,000 feet? 7,000. It's 7,500 when my house was. But the running up there, like for the first 17 days is strictly hell. It's like an iron weight on your chest is the hardest thing in the world.

But, you know, once you get done of a nine-week camp and you come down and drive down to Vegas, And seeing the lights is just that feeling of like, all right, I accomplished that far. Now it's time to go to war. And that's how it was. But Big Bear made me the man I am today for sure. I could have took shortcuts. I could have took the easy way out. But I was willing to stand down and grind on my butt of mouthpiece and let's go to war.

I don't think people realize, because you're in the octagon with people that are about the same size as you, like just how big you are. Like when you shake someone's hand, it's like a catcher's man on your hand. Yeah, it's from all the rest, on all the pool and grabbing and walking here. No, but my dad was a big guy. You know, on my mom's side, my grandpa, he was a big guy, who was 6-3. My dad was 6-1. I'm about 6-3, 6-2 and a half around there. You know, I walk around right now out of shape.

I walk around about 240. When I'm in fight shape, I'm about 225. That's a big cut. Yeah, well, I mean, I go from, you know, in great fight shape. This is after my camp, you know, of nine weeks to 10 weeks. I'm about 225, and I get down to 205, which is my normal. We'll fight way. And it's hard to get down there, but it's hard enough where it's almost easy.

You know, it's just just enough where it kind of gets to that breaking point. Just recently, last year, I fought Anderson-Silver and a boxed-mast with Triller hand. I cut 40 pounds in one month. How? Guys, you don't even understand. I almost died. But, I mean, I didn't work a year and a half prior to that due to COVID and everything. So I was kind of spent a lot of my savings, taking care of my bills.

I take care of this house, take care of my mom's house, my family. And I just came to a point where I was like, please, Lord, I was begging. I mean, I was literally praying every night and I was, please Lord, give me an opportunity, give an opportunity. And the call came. Came a month before the fight, and they asked by to fight Anderson Silva. And before they could even say the next word, I said yes. How do you cut 40 pounds at a month?

No lifting. All I did was cardio, mitt work, bag work, and sparring and dieting. completely down like how many calories a day are we talking maybe 2000 oh i thought you were going to be like 800 no maybe christian bayal machinist i mean that's three times a day that i got to eat i mean that's nothing i mean on a normal camp i'm doing 4500 because you're burning so many calories yeah yeah and that's just to keep my weight on you know if i eat less than that then i start losing weight but like i say i mean my my frame is for 205 that was 2 o 5 was made for i was the champion at the time Zupa who bought the company.

I remember who was it Silva, the matchmaker, and he asked me, he's like, Joe Silva, he's all, so what would be the perfect weight for you? I got the perfect weight for me would be 205. I go, I'll walk around about 225. I go, cutting that 20 pounds, it'd be easy. If you can make it that way, it'd be great, because back then I just

got down to 199, and that was hard. I mean, I was probably the hardest. I'd see, if I would, Van de la Siva, I beat him, I was at 199. I thought Yuki Kondo, that was at 199. My last fight at 199 was against Evan Tanner, you know, rest of peace. So he passed away a long time ago.

But it was hard, and I had to keep my weight down. And against Evan Tanner was the first time I'm with the Big Bear. But being in an altitude, when the air is thinner, your body gets dehydrate a lot quicker. So actually my weight did come down a lot easier. But being down here at sea level, it helps out a lot because I go to a scent adaptation. It's in Newport Beach, and I do a hyperbaric chamber, and I do a C-BAC, which is an altitude assimilation machine,

assemblies 25,000 feet in altitude. So I'm getting my red blood cell count up by using that machine. I actually got a hyper-baric chamber upstairs here in my house. You use it every day? Yeah, yeah. Every day. So, hyper-baric chamber I do Monday through Friday twice a day. Let us send in some of your other, like, anti-aging things.

You know, the hyperbo. It's giving me the C-VAC, which is an altitude simulation machine. That's the one. That's the biggest one, and not a lot of companies have it. I know there's one in Arizona. I know Ryan Bader uses it. There's one here in Newport that I would use prior to a fight. And during sparring and getting leg kicked and getting punched in the face, body, so forth,

after sparring, your body is sore as hell. I go on that machine, I do three sessions of 20 minutes, and I come out, and there's not one ache in my body at all. Wow. So what it's doing is reproducing red blood cells in your body. And then I think it was four years ago, I got a hybrid chamber in my room, and I come to realize, once I have all these red blood cells, multiplying in my body, how can I compress them?

Hyperbaric chamber. Hyperbaric chamber compresses them. Now you build white blood cells. So the recovery is just amazing. It's just something that's very scientific and the technology is amazing, but something that a lot of fires should look into for sure. So you're talking about getting in the cage one more time, at least one more time? At least one more time.

Do you think you have another boxing match in you? Maybe if I do, I think someone at my level, you know, Anderson Silva is a lot more advanced than me, just because my whole life of fighting. has been just aggression and forward and double-leg guy to his back and just smash him. And boxing, it's like, you know, it's almost like chest. You know, I kind of used to compare checkers as boxing and chess like MMA. But when I got a boxing magic, kind of realized that you can't be that aggressive person, you got to sit back and play the game.

And very technical, angle-oriented. There's a lot of things in it that's very methodical that you've got to think and you've got to have the thought process for it for sure. Boxing seems to be on the come-up right now. What the Paul brothers are doing is really, like, drawing a lot of attention. Well, the marketing, the guy that you guys are very well spoken, you know, they understand marketing and they're doing themselves. You know, the things they're doing it's pretty good.

And I have no nothing bad to say about them. I think it's amazing about time someone could step up and kind of save boxing. It was needed since Tyson left. You know, just things that I see now that they can expose themselves so much better with social media, YouTube stuff. And these guys did this the right way. smart. They're able to build the YouTube viewers up to it's like 20 million or something.

It's like crazy. And then they use that to catapult to the next thing in boxing. And they just, they work hard and I got to respect for both of the brothers for sure. Do you think we're going to see Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson? Yeah, that's not going to happen. They both seem to want it to happen. Yeah. If they did, I don't know, Jake Paul, you get touched by Tyson. That's a different story.

They came to me for the fight and I was like, fuck it. I'm all in. Let's do it. You and Mike Tyson? Yeah, yeah. I would have to come up. Let me tell you. I'm a competitive person. I'm only like taking an ass weapon or give an ass weapon. It really doesn't, to me, it's just that's a competitive mentality I have. You know, it's not about a fight.

It's about competing against another man. Would you fight against Jake Paul? I would love to. I'd be amazing. I mean, that'd be an interesting one. That would be fun. I mean, once again, I have an 01 record. He has a 3-0 record.

You know, I still feel like I'm an amateur in boxing. I do it a lot in mixed martial arts, but still, I still feel myself as an amateur. But I'm competitive. I'm very competitive. We talked earlier about pro wrestling. How close were you in your 20s to getting into pro wrestling? So I went to, what was at, WrestleMania, 34, I think it was. It might have been 34 or 35 around there.

They came to Anaheim, and I was the champion at the time. It was won. It was way back then. Yeah, yeah. 304 would have been like a few years ago. That would have been like WrestleMania 16. 16, okay. Yeah.

So it was 2000. They had the latter match that day. It was the Hardy Brothers versus. All the TLC. Yeah. So they had that. And I wouldn't do a, like, I don't know they just interviewed me as a normal interview like this, kind of sit down and talk. But what they're looking to see, what kind of personality I had, what type of character had.

And I didn't know that. And I wish I would have known that because I would have sold myself way better. I think I was too mellow mannered. They wanted to see the crazy honey to beach bad boy. Oh, wow. That's what they wanted to see. And I didn't know what told me anything. Yeah.

No one said it worked to me about it at all. And I went in kind of just was being very polite and, you know, respectful. and never heard anything back. And then actually just, was it, 2019, Shane McMahon reached out to me and says, what do you think about coming in and just trying out? And I went and did it. And once again, I didn't think about this. And this is just about sitting here right now.

I started thinking about it. I was like, that's why they didn't do it because I wasn't over the top. They want someone over the top and just be not crazy, but just like be an eye catcher. You had a performance center tryout? Yeah, yeah. I went to it. I went trained there with us. Norman.

Smiley. I was smiling. Yep. I trained with him, amazing teacher. And I was learning stuff that it took guys six months to learn.

He was like, wow, man, you really got this. I think COVID came about and I never heard anything. Well, you were part of TNA for a little while. Yeah,

I did a little TNA. It was fun. It was more of being an enforcer. It was fun, but I would like to do some matches. I just think I have what it takes and it would take a lot of hard work. I get it,

but I think it'd be fun. It would just be dream-freeing. You had a lot of training. It's a lot of training. I did it. I did the two weeks, training twice a day. I did it, and I put myself through it, and it was hard. It was like being in college wrestling again, you know.

My body, you know, has subdued no problem at all. I had no pain after I was done. I thought I'd have neck problems. I've had four neck surgeries, and I had had any problems. It was good. So as you sit here right now, nothing, it's on you? Nothing. Nothing.

I just got back on a three-day fishing trip on the Reddrichs of 3, and we pulled on a bunch of tuna, and, you know, my hands are sore, of course, from gripping. I mean, you're fighting a fish for 20, 30 minutes. Sure. I mean, it gets tough, but pain. I'm very fortunate, man. What do you accredit that to?

Surgery's? 100% of the surgeries. Surgery's for sure. Stim cells? My surgeon did an amazing job. I did stem cells once, and that was when I fractured my neck. I was supposed to fight Rampage, and one of the sets on C-7, it fractured completely through. I actually went to Vegas, and it was kind of going to get the slope.

It's not supposed to be. done here. Good thing he doesn't have his life anymore. He did something crazy, but I was kind of the test big dummy. And I was willing to do it. And I did it. And let me tell you, nine weeks later, there was no calcification around the set at all. That's one of the main bones that could stick out the side of your vertebrae itself. But there was no calcification, which meaning when it breaks, you usually get a little snap and it healed completely through that there was no calcification at all. They didn't be like I was broken before. That was from stint cell. But the surgeries that I've had, He told me if I put the less hardware I put it in you,

the faster you're going to be able to heal and your body be able to regenerate a lot faster. And once again, the CVAC was another one that helped that a lot because I kept my cardio through the roof. Wow. And just the recovery and the healing process, it was a lot shorter. I've always wondered where your celebration came from. Gosh, so I was, I just won my world title,

and I went here to Carson in California and went to a Muay event. And before the match with this guy from Thailand, Island came out and he started doing a grave digger before the match and grabbed the guy's face and threw it in like, look at Mad Dogg and I was like, oh, I'm still in that. So I think it was like 2000 and then I thought, was it Evan Tanner and I did it and it was just like it blew up from then. Once again, it was just those little antics that you do and just you don't think about it until it's done and you did it and you're like, wow, that was pretty cool. Because it's not just one motion. It's not like one touchdown celebration.

Yeah. It's the digging, it's the grabbing the body, covering it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like I say, I like to act. I'm, you know, I'm pretty not a good actor. I'm not, you know, I just like doing it. It just, it's kind of like an icing on the cake. Yeah.

Well, then maybe there's pro wrestling in your future still. Yeah, you never know, huh? I don't know. Like I say, my age doesn't show what I am. You know, I feel a lot younger than what my age says. What are three things that the average person could do today to look this good when they're 47? Eat healthy.

Stay away from... So my biggest thing is no greasy food, no whites, as in white rice, white pasta, everything's wheat. And no sodas, and I stay away from drinking alcohol. The sodas and the fried foods are the biggest thing. Keep away from that stuff. Fried foods, anything with oil is junk.

It's just eating healthy. And have a good mentality of life. Don't try to do. to be a saver. And what I mean being a saber is someone of a relationship that you're trying to fix them and not keeping yourself to your love yourself. You know, I went through that relationship myself where I tried to fix her so much that I lost myself. Now I was able to find my wife now that I've been with nine years and she's been my support, you know, when times I have hard days and she's going to be okay, babe. And I'm not, it's not like I'm not mad enough to do it myself, but we're all

human, you know? People say, you know, men, I'm not supposed to cry. I wish I cry at good movies and everything, but it's just one of those emotional things for a person to live in. If you live in a toxic relationship, it's just going to age you like no other. Drugs, I don't do drugs, super important. But I think sleeping is one of my biggest secrets. I heard you in another interview say that you also don't do caffeine. During camp, I do not do caffeine at all. When camp's over, yes.

On Sundays, you know. What's the reason behind that during chaos? So it dehydrates the body. Dehydrates the muscles to you have a bigger chance of, you know, exhaustion. and tearing a muscle and so forth. But I think that's the biggest thing. But like I say, this is the biggest secret that people don't know and a lot of people can't do it is sleep.

I can sleep 10 hours, no problem. And I don't know maybe because I'm an honest man. I do a goddess thing. I don't have to worry about anybody getting something over on me or it's just... So you have no problem getting to sleep. Yeah, I have no problem getting to sleep. Like I say, I sleep from 10 o'clock at night until 10 o'clock in the morning sometimes.

You know how many people are watching this that are so jealous right now? And I talk to a lot of people that are like, How do you sleep that much? And I have peace. I have peace of mind. I'm in your camp. My bedroom is completely blacked out. Mine is completely blacked out.

I can't even see my hand this close in front of my face. And I'm with you. I can sleep 10 hours easy. Yeah. And I've done that since day one of my camps. You know, my bike camps, I would do. There you go. Our security right there.

There they are. Yeah. They go on, right? Staying the lines. We got the lifeguard, the county sheriff here. Yeah. Wow. Just Tito's backyard.

No, they got to protect around here. You know, we've been having problems of robberies that I've been done here. And it's scary they have enough balls that come in my house. You know, I got robbed. They stole my safe out of the floor. They stole all my girls' shoes. They sold their purses. They sold all my watches.

And it was probably about a half a million dollars in total that went up missing. You weren't home when it happened. I was not home. Me and my three boys were in Palm Springs. My wife was in Texas and they had enough balls to come and do it. So over the last, spending a month, now from dusk until four in the morning, I've been searching this neighborhood. And I got about six or seven other people that lived around here. Their house got hit too. They've been doing the same

thing. So we do a little searches. Did you get anything on your cameras? Nothing. So I've been kind of suspicious about this. I had a drone behind my home. And there's been a drone like a month and a half ago. And I was like, what does drone just sitting here looking at you for it? Maybe it's like cops doing surveillance or whatever. Come to find out that someone has been tapping into my online cameras. Wow. IP address that was on my camera there to break into it.

And so they were watching me probably the month before. Wow. Me going in and out, seeing where my safe was, and come to realize that I kind of messed up and I should have did it the other way that my guy came in and he did a firewall on it. So now they can't do it. Yeah, yeah.

encrypted to get into it. But it's just vicious right now. this whole Biden regime, the administration that is doing to our country is just, it's scary. I lived to Huntington Beach my whole life in the first time. I'm going to move. I'm selling everything here. I'm moving to Florida. I just want my kids around people that love America, that love this country because this is the last country in the world that is free as we are. And if I don't let my kids be around a positive environment, I'm afraid that they'll get lost in the corruption. I don't want that to happen. Would you think about running for public office again? No. At least in

my kids right now and get through school in college, maybe later on when I'm in Florida, maybe. You know, at the end of the day when I ran for city council here, I think I thought too small. I should have did governor. I think that would have been a big change. Wow. Just because when I got into city council, I got to see how corrupt it was. Even at the city level, it's super corrupt, super, like just, it makes me discuss it to understand that people would want America to be what they're trying to push right now. I know a lot of podcasts and so forth guys say, oh, we have to talk politics. Now I understand why they say, stop talking about politics because they don't want people to understand what's going on in their country.

And I try to tell my kids and I show them right from wrong and I don't say what's right. I don't say what's wrong. I say, you figure this out and you tell me what you think. And every single time they say that is the right thing, that is the wrong thing. That's what I know I'm raising good men. Did you worry at all when you endorse Trump that you would be alienating some of your audience or some of your fan base? I didn't worry about it because it was my children's future. And I was all in. I worked for Donald Trump on a celebrity apprentice. And prior to that, I knew he was as a father. You know, I'd be at the fight events in Jersey,

and he'd be there with Junior and Eric. And it was like, that's a good dad. He's a billionaire, but he's bringing his kids to the fight with him. I'm all, that's a good man. And everybody loved them. Everybody, all rappers, actors, everybody loved them until he became president. And then all of a sudden, it was, he exposed of what was really going on in this country. And he was willing to fight for it.

I think he lost over a billion dollars when he was president. He didn't receive any money from the government as being president, and that showed what type of patriot he truly was. To me, it wasn't about my fans. It was about my children. It was about my family. It was about the future of this country. Like I said, I've been to Iraq six times to see all the troops,

have a bunch of special force friends, and they're all fighting for the freedoms and the rights that we have here. And when he became president, I backed it. I'm Mexican-American. Actually, I'm a mutt. I have French, I have Portuguese, I have Mexican, I have Native American, I have French, I have Irish. So I'm a mutt.

I have everything in me. At the end of the day, I'm an American. And that's what's important to me. I've traveled the world. I've seen how the world is. I see all it works, and I don't want that here. I don't want that for my kids. And there are some good countries, don't get me wrong,

but there's other countries I went and seeing how shady they were, where I had to go to the country and be around criminals to be safe for myself. And it's crazy. I'm thankful. times I've been in Mexico. You know, I've been around some cartel guys, and, you know, they're not good guys, but at that time, they're good guys

because they're protecting me. And that's the scary things that it's going on in now. With the borders that are being open, the way the ra houses are being robbed, how inflation is going through the roof, and everybody still want to point fingers at each other. At the end of the day, I wish Biden did a better job. I'm not going to say he's not my president because he is.

I just wish he would do a better job. I wish he would care more about and put America first. And that's what Trump was doing. and he was putting American first. Why start another war? Why be a part of another war and put America in danger where we can take care of our country?

I mean, there's so many soldiers or veterans who come back from war that are on the streets now. They send $40 billion to protect Ukraine. And that's their thing. I don't know what's going on in Ukraine. There's something fishy about all of it, where the money's going, but how about taking care of our country?

And that's what I mean. I've understood that because, as I grew up in the 80s, as Reagan was talking about, you know, communists come here, They're not going to come here with guns and bullets. We're being overtaken right now without firing one round. And it's the most scariest thing in the world.

And I hope this country lasts another year, or two and a half years. I just, I really look at it. I hope that something comes out better where the border's not as open as it is. And this country is a lot more safer. You know, the things that they're doing to our children of just, it's just, it seems like it's a dream. Sounds like you should run for president. No, no, no, no, no.

no, no, no, no. That's too much, too much for me. I, I can sit here as a constituent and say what I want and not have to be, you know, branded as one person. I want to take care of my kids. And when I leave this earth, I want to make sure that my children are able to keep the name strong of Ortiz of being respected. And that's my goal. That's what I want to do. You know, maybe I can keep people aware of gotten vote, you know, registered a vote, vote, and see how this country is now and see how the country It was a year and a half ago, and you guys be the honest truth of what you want for the future of our country. And it's important.

I mean, like I say, it's not about Democrat. It's not a Republican anymore. This is about America. People need to understand that. Look, I'm Canadian and can't vote. I'm so grateful to be able to live here. Yeah. I find it so interesting that it's basically you're on this team or that team.

And that's how it's the blue team or the red team. That's wrong. Can we be like some sort of purple team? Yeah, no. That's a scary thing if that comes out where it does get split up like that. what side you stand on? And for me, I stand on the future of faith, freedom, and family. That's, that's, this is my three-ups, man.

That's my important thing, and that's why I got to teach my children. Does anyone ever call you H-Triple-B, the Huntington Beach bad boy? H-Tri-B. Once a while. H-Tee, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's why, actually, that's one of my emails, so. Oh, no, we just gave it up at AOL.com. Yeah, right. When are we going to see you in the cage?

You talked about this next fight. Yeah, probably like in October. Oh, this year? Yeah, 100% this year. For freedom fight night. Correct. Yep, yep. So.

I had Harrison on the show recently. He was teasing this off camera with me. And I'm like, okay, well, I'll talk to you. If he can make it happen, I think he's the person to make it happen. I really do. I met Harrison about a year and a half ago, amazing man, amazing individual, you know, family man, family oriented, and that's my type of guy. So if this fight goes well, do you think we'll ever see you in the UFC again?

I don't want to say no. I think I'll give that to Dana say no. And I think I made a mistake a while back saying I'll never fight up the UFC and came back to bite me in the ass. It is where it is. He's told you that? Yeah, yeah. I think he's told me that. You know, I wish you can get over the hard feelings.

Well, it's life. And life's too short to hate. Yeah. You're probably a very different person now than you were when you said that. I was a nightmare back then. I was with my axe. I was drinking the Kool-Aid. I really got strongholds to the things I said.

I probably shouldn't have said them because I was doing by hearsay. You know, and I made some mistakes, but since then, I matured so much. Things of life changed completely. You know, even though it's just fighting, you know, I got it was it four and or five and two in the last six years? So I've done very well. I mean, I just reaction to my body, the things I've done. I can get into a camp. I can push myself as hard as a camp.

When it comes to fight time, I'm prepared. I'm ready to go to war. That last boxing match wasn't me. I look at the weighing pitcher of me and Anderson against each other. And anybody can look that up online and see how skinny I was. I was like, man, I look at Ethiopian. No arm muscle, no definition, nothing. I was like, and I didn't.

I didn't do no weight training at all. But you live and learn, and I live and learn from it. Yeah. Well, I think it would be great to just see. you in the crowd or do UFC fight? Yeah, you know, I think about that also. You know, I wish I would have got a little more respect for men, but I get it.

You make the bed you lie in. And you lie the bed you make, and I've done that. But it's behind me now. So now it's just about the future of what I'm going to do and make sure I raise my men the right way. And that's not talking about my kids. And that's important. And to be happy, you know, to be happy and love life,

because life is too damn short. As we wrap this up, What do you think is the best piece of advice that someone's given you? The best piece of advice that someone's given me. Work hard and have no regrets. And I always do respect some values. You know, I want to make sure when I go to bed that I've gotten the most out of the day today. And that's what's important.

And do it the right way. Do it with integrity with respect. During the fight, so people get to understand this is a little different here. We're talking about life or a fight in general. A fight in general, I'm going to attack a person psychologically as much as possible. Psychological warfare. In life, I want to treat everybody like a brother to me. It's like family to me.

Anybody that's in my circle, anybody who knows me you never hung out with me, I treat them like family. I'm like the secure, like dumb. I'm their security. And I think that's when the values kind of step in of knowing that at the end of the day, I'm no different than you. I don't hold myself any higher. I keep myself at a grounded level. And it's important because all this stuff can be taken away in a flip of a switch.

And I'm thankful. And I'm thankful. God gave me the gifts that I have, but I had to work for them. I had to bless my eyes. I had to be responsible for these actions that I have achieved through my life. And, you know, I've never been a victim. You know, I had a victim mentality when I was younger

and I couldn't realize that that shit wasn't getting me anywhere. I got to think positive. I got to stay positive. And I got to think what the next, what's the next best thing that I can do to help myself and my family and the people that I surround myself with? Yeah. And there's another advice lesson that I learned was who I surround myself with

and who I become. And 100%. I mean, I understood this when I became a world champion. It was like, I hung out with a bunch of knucklehead gang members. It was like, dude, look at the people you're hanging out with, man. You're going to become those people. And I stopped, and then that's when I started hanging out with Lorenzo and Dana and all those guys. And being around billioners, like, I want to be like this.

I got an opportunity to meet Donald Trump and be around him during the old, or during the summary apprentice. And then you realize that the people you surround yourself with, you have a chance to be coming. And just all psychological stuff you go through each and every day of knowing that you can achieve those things. I end every conversation talking about gratitude because it's such an important thing to me. I wake up every day. I say out loud three things that I'm grateful for. Yes.

And I end every conversation with that. So, Tito, what are three things in your life? We're grateful for right now? Happy family. Being a hard worker. And knowing that nothing can break me. Love that. I really, really believe in those things.

And like I say, my family being happy has to be the number one. You know, my kids can have a smile on their face and saying, Dad, I love you. My wife could have a smile on my face, I said, honey, I'm proud of you. As a kid, that's always ever wanted. Someone says, tell someone that they love me and they care. And those are the things as a kid I never had.

So I have to make sure my kids have those things. I want to just acknowledge you. Like, first of all, thank you so much for this great conversation. Thank you for inviting us to your beautiful house. You're a champion inside the cage and outside of the cage, and I just want to acknowledge you for just the man that you are. Thank you. You know, there was a bad picture painted on me during my career,

and people never really understood who I was until I got away from UFC, and then people were like, wow, they kind of see a little bit of the ultimate fighter of being a coach. And like I say, at the end of the day, you know, this ain't about fighting, this ain't about business, it's about being a human being in society that's willing to give back in a positive manner. And that's what I teach my children. That's them, I want to get across, and it's important.

I'm a real guy. You know, I've made it, but I'm not done. I'm far from done. I have a lot, a lot more to do, a lot more to do for sure. I want to take advantage of this life right now. Tito Ortiz. Thank you, sir. You're very welcome.

There it is. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with the UFC Hall of Famer Tito Ortiz. Big thank you to Tito for inviting us to his house. Thank you for being there with us as well. And yeah, sounds like we're going to see one more fight from him before the year is done. Woo! Do me a favor, please. Share this link with someone who you know is going to love this.

Make sure to subscribe to the show wherever you're listening. And if that happens to be Apple Podcasts and you happen to have a spare minute or two today, it'd be so awesome if you could leave a review on there. And here's a quote we're going to leave you with that you can think about for the rest of the day. It's from Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Ellie Weisel. In the word question, there is a beautiful word, quest. I love that word. We are all partners in a quest, the essential questions.

Have no answers. Be great and be grateful. We'll see you on the next one for some more insight. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do with rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about.

You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of Sports Smack. Take advantage of it, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

You've been warned.