Fighting through injuries at age 35 with declining skills, is a massive hurdle Tito Ortiz must clear in order to get his career back on track this weekend at UFC 121. Imagine doing that while dealing with drama on the homefront. Back in April, Ortiz had a dust up with his wife Jenna Jameson. After a week of embarrassment that played out very publicly, the couple reported that everything was okay and they had reconciled. Apparently something was still simmering, then there was death in the family and instantly Ortiz had more drama deal with in the final weeks of his training camp.
Ortiz was asked by USA Today to clarify his remarks.
"Me and Jenna had a loss in our family. Larry Massoli, her father, passed away two-and-a-half weeks ago. I'm a very emotional guy, man. I'm up here in Big Bear alone. There were a lot of things said, and I think I let my emotions hang out a little too much, and I probably shouldn't do that, but we were just going through a lot," said Ortiz. "Me and Jenna were going through a lot. I think the hard times of losing her father just got the best of me. It was just really, really hard."
"I say some things out of hostility and hard emotions. I think it was a little more than that. He was someone that we loved very much. Some things were said between us and I didn't believe it, and I had to be shown the proof."
But it was a lot more than just talking things out. Ortiz also had to leave training camp several times and travel the 100-plus miles back to Southern California.
"The last three weekends, we've been putting together -- actually, Jenna's put together the funeral for her father. Her father passed away one weekend. I went to see her. I went down -- she said, "No, no, stay up there" -- I came down the mountain, which I'm not really normally known to leave the mountain. I went down there for a day, and it was hard. Really, really hard to see the pain she was in," said Ortiz.
"Came back up here. The next week was the funeral. I went back down there again to help. That was when we had our little confrontation, and it was nothing more than a little miscommunication on my part."
"Things are back to normal now. We had to come to terms, and we came to terms. Things are great now," said Ortiz.
"I'm excited to see her, because I hadn't really seen her in the last week. I'm only able to see her one day a week. It's hard on me. It's hard on my emotions. I love the woman so much, and I love my kids so much, and to be away from them for this long a time is really hard on both of us. [...] Things are 100%, man. Things are good. Things like this, challenges, every relationship, it just makes it stronger."
This doesn't look good for Ortiz. He's battling, a younger clone of himself. All the pressure is on the former champ and he hasn't had much peace leading up to the fight. It'll be shocking if Ortiz can compartmentalize all of this, pull it together and use the Octagon as his santuary.
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