Tito Ortiz told Cris 'Cyborg' Justino to take featherweight title fight

Before Cris Justino’s MMA career came to an abrupt halt, Tito Ortiz advised her to take a women’s featherweight title bout offered by the UFC.

“I told her to take the fight,” Ortiz (18-12-1 MMA, 2-1 BMMA) told MMAjunkie today during a call in support of his Spike-televised headliner against Chael Sonnen (28-14-1 MMA, 0-0 BMMA) at Bellator 170. “She said, ‘Tito, I’ve been working really, really hard for the last three years. I’ve been cutting a lot of weight. I want to enjoy Christmas time. I want to go on vacation,’ and I understood that. Personally, I understood that.”

Bellator 170 takes place Jan. 21 at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif.

Ortiz didn’t specify when he had the conversation with “Cyborg,” or the event for which the title fight was offered. UFC President Dana White said Justino (17-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) was asked three times to fight for the promotion’s inaugural featherweight title, only to be turned down each time.

Subsequently, Justino failed an out-of-competition test conducted by the UFC’s anti-doping partner, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, coming up positive for the banned diuretic spironolactone, she said in a written statement. The former Strikeforce champ and two-time UFC catchweight vet now faces a suspension.

Justino is now asking USADA for a retroactive therapeutic use exemption. She claims her doctor advised one was not needed when she underwent treatment for complications from a hard weight cut for her fight against Lina Lansberg at UFC Fight Night 95. UFC boss White has insinuated her positive test was related to her trio of refusals to fight for the title, which will now be awarded to the winner of Holly Holm vs. Germaine de Randamie at UFC 208.

Per policy, USADA will complete its results management process before making any public decisions on the matter.

Ortiz said he wasn’t fully aware of the circumstances surrounding Justino’s pending USADA case and was hesitant to comment.

“The situation she’s going through right now, from what I’ve heard through her attorney and what I’ve heard from her, it was strictly from her doctor,” Ortiz said. “So I have no input on that at all. I don’t know. I’m not going to make any statements at all about it, because I know zero about it.”

In her statement, Justino denied wrongdoing and apologized to fans for the news. Her boyfriend, Ray Elbe, said the situation is “a shame” and expects “some penalty” for the failed test.

“She needed the medicine to recover from the weight cut,” he wrote on “The Underground.” “People slammed her for not fighting Feb. 11, but she was recovering from the extreme weight cut and was in treatment. Her doctor told her the three cuts in eight months were becoming dangerous.”

Justino was recently featured on an ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” special on weight-cutting. The video detailed the extreme efforts she took to make weight for the bout with Lansberg.

“Cris ‘Cyborg’ already learned the risks of steroids in 2011,” Elbe wrote. “(In) 2016, Cris ‘Cyborg’ learned the risks of extreme weight cutting. She isn’t using a steroid, and her fans can be confident that her intent wasn’t PED but rather health related.”

In 2012, Justino was stripped of the Strikeforce women’s featherweight title one month after testing positive for the steroid stanozolol. She then blamed a coach for giving her a supplement laced with the banned substance.

From the second to fourth quarter of 2016, Justino was tested 11 times by USADA.

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