Penick's Take
PENICK: Notebook 12/9 - Miguel Torres' apology; UFC 140 PPV expectations; Tito Ortiz, and more
Dec 9, 2011 - 11:59:07 PM PENICK: Notebook 12/9 - Miguel Torres' apology; UFC 140 PPV expectations; Tito Ortiz, and more

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

-Looking at the poll results regarding the three top fights for tomorrow night's UFC 140 card, there isn't a ton of surprise in where the votes are going. MMATorch fans are expecting a knockout in the night's main event by a large margin, with Champ Jon Jones getting nearly 50 percent of the votes in his favor for a stoppage win. He takes an overall edge in the picks with 60% of the votes overall. 50% of fans are expecting a decision in the Tito Ortiz-Lil' Nog fight, with Ortiz taking the edge in overall votes with around 57% responding for him. Finally, in the co-main, 45% expect Frank Mir to knock Minotauro Nogueira out a second time, and a 67% overall expect a Mir victory.

My official picks are Jones by third round TKO, Mir by second round TKO, and Lil' Nog by decision, and I've seen people mostly coming in line with the poll results around the web in their picks. Mir's percentage is the largest of the field, and that sounds about right because we've already seen him and Nogueira square off in the past. There are a lot questions still on how effective Machida can be, so a lot of stock is being put into his elusive game giving Jones problems. And the Ortiz-Nogueira fight is a bit of a toss up with how poorly Nogueira has handled takedowns in his last two fights.

-Miguel Torres issued an apology through his website today for his comments on Twitter that got him released from the UFC this week. The frustrating thing is he didn't have the sense to issue a statement like that before getting released, instead responding with incredulousness to the negative reaction he got immediately on Twitter. Instead of realizing it was a really dumb thing to post on Twitter, he got upset that people were upset over it, and then re-tweeted the "joke" as a "windowless van" in place of a "rape van." There should be more transparency over what types of things can gain a reaction like that from the UFC, but the fact of the matter is there should be some common sense displayed by people on Twitter in the first place. The defense of "but it was a joke from a TV show!" is simply not a defense, and he's in no way the first person in any field to find themselves in this type of situation with their employer for something said on Twitter. The apology was the right thing in response to the situation, and I think Torres will be able to eventually return to the UFC, but there's a level of personal responsibility that comes in to play that wasn't displayed initially in this case. That as much as anything is what led to the release.

-Lost in the shuffle of controversy this week is the fight that was announced this morning between Renan Barao and Scott Jorgensen for UFC 143. The bantamweight fight is a fantastic matchup, and could easily yield the next title challenger after the Dominick Cruz-Urijah Faber fight in the summer. Jorgensen has already gotten a shot at Cruz and failed, so a win over Barao may not be his ticket into another fight, especially as he's also affiliated with Fabe. However, a win for Barao would make it hard to argue for anyone else ahead of him for the next shot, as he'll at that point be unbeaten in 28 fights with wins over two top 135 lb. fighters in Brad Pickett and Jorgensen. This actually ties into the Torres situation a little bit, as a bout between Torres and Barao would have made a ton of sense as a title eliminator in early 2012. With Torres getting cut for the Twitter incident, Jorgensen was one of the best options. The other would have been Jorgensen's teammate Joseph Benavidez, but he may be saved for the soon-to-be-announced flyweight division.

-Can the UFC's pay-per-view business take an upturn with UFC 140 on Saturday night? Jones and Machida have each done around 400,000 buys for each of their title fights, but with the UFC not breaking the 300K mark in their last three events, and this card again being in between some other major events, it's hard to place where this one will land. I think 350K is a good middle point for the event, with a little over 400K as the high and 300K as a realistic, but still disappointing, low. Jones, despite his tremendous athleticism and exciting fighting style, hasn't completely caught on with fans just yet, and I'm not sure if enough of the Jones haters believe Machida is going to beat him, which would have them tuning in to see it happen. If that group of fans and the group that are behind Jones tune in, this could do significant business compared to the events the UFC has put on recently. However, with Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem still coming to the pay-per-view bill for this month, this card could still be viewed as one to skip to avoid two pay-per-view events in one month on the bill.

-It's interesting to hear Tito Ortiz speak these days. The "Huntington Beach Bad Boy" certainly sounds like he's coming to the end of his career, and his talk of retirement in early 2012 and a desire for one final matchup with Forrest Griffin is making it very apparent that he's ready to go. How that bodes for his preparedness and interest in Saturday's fight is an intriguing point into that matchup.

Away from that fight and the Forrest matchup, MMAWeekly.com has a very interesting interview with him in which he opines on regrets with former friend and manager - and now UFC President - Dana White, as well as the huge rivalry he had with Chuck Liddell. Here are a couple of the key passages:

***BEGIN ORTIZ QUOTE***

"I have a little bit of regrets with Dana and UFC with some of the things I've said. I tried to stand my ground; I think I did a great job by doing that. It's a business thing... So there was a little times where there's some things I said to Dana personally, I probably shouldn't have said. There's regret to it...

"Me and him were really, really close friends, and I said some bad things that I probably shouldn't have said, and I apologized to him. I still see that he does not like me. He says it's cool, everything's good, but I can tell the true feelings behind him. I don't know what I need to do to make a difference. I just stay positive, look towards the future, and life is too short to hate.

"As far as Chuck, during The Ultimate Fighter when I said some things, I apologized to him, like I said it's business, it's fighting. This is a fight game, you've got to sell the fight, and you've got to get in the guy's head who you're competing against, and there were some lines that I crossed that I kind of regret. Anything prior to that, hey it was the bad boy image. I was selling pay-per-views...

"Hopefully there will be a time where Chuck will let ends meet. Let's go ahead and let bygones be bygones. Both of our careers have been exciting. They came out with the Bad Blood thing and there was a lot of lies that were said in it. If that's what it's got to do to make me look bad and him look like a marketable champion like he was, let it be. I'll take the flack from it and the heat from it. We live short lives, why hate and hold onto that for so long? Just forgive and forget."

***END ORTIZ QUOTE***

This is a very different Ortiz than we've ever seen, at least in public. This type of thought process makes his retirement talk seem all the more legitimate, and honestly I'd be surprised if he fights any more than one more time after Saturday night.