EPILOGUE
There’s always something going on in my life. If I tried to make this book totally up-to-date, the book would never come out. At some point I just have to say enough is enough.
So it’s finally time to close the door.
I just got back from New York, where I filmed the television seriesCelebrity Apprentice . It aired in January, so you all know how it turned out and how I did. It was a good opportunity to learn a lot about business, plus being on a primetime network television series didn’t hurt my profile.
I accepted theCelebrity Apprentice gig at a time when circumstances beyond my control caused me to step back and just think about things. Circumstances that began with my having to back out of the Rashad Evans rematch.
I had been having recurring back problems for quite a while, and it finally boiled down to my wanting to be one hundred percent healthy before I competed again. I wasn’t going to fight at seventy percent and make some other fighter look good, so I called up the UFC and told them I wasn’t in any condition to fight. I’m sure you heard a lot of stories and smack going down about my pulling out of the fight. But the reality was that, physically, I was in no condition to fight.
The UFC is trying to set up a fight for me in February 2008. At this point I wouldn’t mind fighting Shogun or any other top-five fighter. It’s typical of the UFC not to let me know who I’ll be fighting until the last six weeks. So my opponent is still a mystery to me at the time of this writing.
But if and when I have my next fight, that will be the last fight on my current contract. Because as of mid-November 2007, talks with the UFC have broken down. We’ve been going back and forth for a while but, all of a sudden, I haven’t heard from them in weeks. You know how it goes. It’s what I want versus what they want to give me. And right now, that’s the big stumbling block.
If the UFC is making twenty million per fight, I want a big chunk of that. My feeling is that when I start making twenty-five to fifty percent of the gate, that’s when it will all start to make sense.
I’ve got about three more years left as a fighter. I don’t want to look back later and think,Damn! I should have taken advantage of my last few years of competition in every possible way.
A couple of months ago, I was invited to Washington, D.C., by the USO to present an award to a soldier at this big gala dinner. While we were in Washington, I went on a tour of the Capitol Building with Jenna. We were led around by Senator Arlen Specter, which was totally cool. We got to sit in on one of the congressional sessions and I got to see things like the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. I was seeing things from our country’s history that I had only ever seen in books. It was a totally amazing experience for me.
There. You’re pretty much caught up on my life. And we’re at the end of the book. I’ve wanted to write this book for years. I wanted to let people know that it is possible for somebody to start out living a life as a total zero and end up living a life that most people dream about. It’s a happy ending…hell, it’s a great ending. But I’m only thirty-two. Getting to this point only makes me want to survive and to work even harder. I’m stoked to have been able to tell my story.
I’m still standing. There’s more to come.
—Tito Ortiz, November 2007