What do you do with aged and yet still stubbornly famous fighters? You can do what the UFC recently did with B.J. Penn. Better yet, though, you can look at the blueprint that was used for tonight’s Bellator 170 headliner.
In a Spike-televised bout at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., veterans Tito Ortiz (18-12-1 MMA, 2-1 BMMA) and Chael Sonnen (29-14-1 MMA, 0-0 BMMA) meet in a light-heavyweight main event.
Neither headliner is in the prime of his career; Ortiz, who turned 42 today, had a few solid wins in 2014, but age and injuries have caught up with the former UFC champion. Sonnen, meanwhile, is 39 and just 1-3 since mid-2012.
But rather than watch some youngster raise his profile with a victory over a past-his-prime vet, as we saw Yair Rodriguez do with Penn at UFC Fight Night 103, Ortiz and Sonnen are somewhat equally matched, and the “seniors tours” aspect of the matchup doesn’t make us feel so guilty watching it.
Check out the video above as MMAjunkie’s Ben Fowlkes explains.
For more on Bellator 170, check out the MMA Rumors section of MMAjunkie.
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