Tito Ortiz vs. “Babalu” Sobral At Affliction 2?

That’s the rumor according to Yahoo’s Steve Cofield:

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.

The last portion of that quote speaks volumes…no way Ortiz let’s Affliction pay Tim Sylvia $800K and get away with it. While Ortiz would help Affliction PPV wise…he’s not the PPV draw that most people think he is…so I’m not even sure that’s break even on him. He hasn’t carried a PPV alone since the dark ages of MMA. During his last stint with the UFC, in 5 appearances…he was the main event once. That was against Chuck Liddell…who at the time was the biggest MMA star in North America.

If they do manage to sign Ortiz…he’ll just add to the growing lineage of UFC castaways to head to Affliction. Ortiz will take Babalu down and lay on him for a boring 3 round decision…if you can’t tell I’m not interested in this fight at all.