Justin McCully says unpaid debt prompted him to align with Stephan Bonnar

Semi-retired MMA fighter and coach Justin McCully said he was the guy behind the mask – figuratively – when it came to this past weekend’s bizarre faceoff at Bellator 123.

McCully adamantly denied the physical part of the confrontation was staged, but happily admitted to scripting a scene where he revealed himself behind a two-part disguise and joined Stephan Bonnar in calling out Tito Ortiz.

“We stamped our name on the game one more time,” McCully told MMAjunkie Radio. “We went out there and shocked the world and did something that nobody’s done, and it worked like a charm.”

The idea for donning the mask came to McCully when Bonnar (15-8 MMA, 0-0 BMMA) asked him to join his camp for Ortiz in preparation for Bellator 131, which takes place Nov. 15 in San Diego with Bonnar and Ortiz (17-11-1 MMA, 1-0 BMMA) in the main event.

“I thought about it overnight, and at that point, I really started to think about loyalty and how close I am to Tito still, and I thought to myself, ‘Well, not very,'” he said. “Obviously, there’s nothing there, so let’s do this thing as big as we can.

“Bonnar wanted to get into the head of Tito Ortiz, which is a very big head to get into.”

For McCully, the motivation behind the bit was more personal than it may have seemed on TV. The 38-year-old UFC vet said Ortiz stiffed him out of pay as a training partner for several fights.

“He’s owed me and hasn’t even made an effort to make good on it, so I really have no allegiance, and Bonnar’s a real solid dude,” McCully said. “I thought, if I’m going to help anybody out on this one, I’m going to help the guy that called me first.”

Although McCully said their working relationship ended before Ortiz’s fight with Lyoto Machida at UFC 84 in 2008, he said he made several attempts to recover the money owed him.

“I went to his house and talked to him,” he said. “(Ortiz’s former wife) Jenna (Jameson) was there a couple of different times. I talked to him in Big Bear (Calif.). It was just one of those things where you’re watching a guy blow 25 grand on the blackjack table, he owes you less than that … bro, what are you doing?

“He’s the one who called me and told me what he was offering me to come aboard and train, and he only did that because Marc Laimon tried to charge him double what he offered me, and when he offered it to me, I accepted it on a bro deal and just decided to help him out. I left my family and moved out to wherever his camp was, helped him through eight, nine camps, and we had great success together, too.

“Some of his success, he owes to the team. The guys who make it furthest in this sport are the guys who really take care of their teammates and their coaches and never lose sight of who got them there.”

Ortiz did not respond to a text message requesting a response on McCully’s comments.

McCully opined that the UFC Hall of Famer’s steep decline in the late 2000s was brought on by a series of conflicts behind the scenes with training partners.

“1 billion percent,” he said. “It’s a common thread across the board. If you ask anybody that’s had dealings with him, they’ll let you know there’s a story they have where somewhere along the line … the guy took advantage of you when he shouldn’t have, and it’s more than often financial. This is definitely his own recipe for disaster. He made it, stirred it up, put it in the oven, and now he’s eating it.

“People have told me, (striking coach) Jason Parillo was working with him and said he’s gotten much better, and OK, you’re getting better about things going forward, but what did you do to retroactively make things right with the people you need to make them right with? There’s definitely a discrepancy there.”

And so, McCully feels little remorse about breaking a code of silence reserved for close training partners. He said fans can expect to see more shots taken at Ortiz.

In the arena this past Friday, he said the former champ stared at him moments after initiating physical contact in the Bellator cage.

“He made eye contact with me like, ‘What are you doing, bro?’ And I was like, ‘You know what I’m doing,'” McCully said. “Oh yeah, big gestures. He was like, ‘It’s going to come around,’ and I informed him, ‘No Tito, it’s coming around. You sent this around. If you handled your business and did what you were supposed to do and were a good friend to everybody like they were a good friend to you, this wouldn’t be in your face right now.'”

For more on Bellator 131, check out MMA Rumors section of the site.

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