UFC 148: Tito Ortiz vs Forrest Griffin

Tito Ortiz (16-10) vs Forrest Griffin (18-7)

The big news in this fight is that it's (supposed to be anyway) Tito's retirement fight.  He has been in the game for a long time but is only 1-6-1 in his last 8.  That record sounds bad but he was competitive in most of those fights, only Evans (the second time) and Lil Nog really cleaned his clock.

Tito has become more of a striker these days (which seems to happen to a lot of BJJ, Judo and Wrestling based guys for whatever reason).  His bread & butter was always to take people down and bust them up with elbows.  There is nothing wrong with expanding your game and adding more tools to your toolbox but when you completely abandon what you are good at you get results like Tito has (plus he is older now).  His key to winning this fight is to simply take Forrest down and land elbows to his face.  He may want to throw some punches as well but with the purpose of making Forrest forget about the takedown.

Forrest Griffin is a hard worker, getting by on heart and cardio more than anything else.  He has had some big highs and big lows in MMA.  He has also been talking retirement some so we will have to see what happens in this fight.  Forrest hasn't fought in nearly a year, after getting KO'd in less then 2 minutes by Shogun.  This guy is a cardio machine so I expect him to be in shape, even after the long layoff.  Forrest will want to keep this on the feet and use his high work ratio and low kicks while trying to sprawl out of any takedowns from Ortiz. 

Considering how close their first two fights have been, I wouldn't expect anything different this time.  Maybe one of them will pull out a decision this time (instead of a split decision like the first two fights).  It would be really interesting if one of them could really put a feather in their cap by finishing the other one.  It should be noted that Ortiz has been finished in his last 2 fights, both by body shots, Forrest should be paying attention to that and mix in some punches and kicks to the body during this fight.