Tito Ortiz has fought a lot of battles, but there's only so much the body can take.
For the second straight fight, Ortiz's midsection gave out as he lost to Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in a first round stoppage due to strikes at the 3:15 mark of the first at UFC 140 in Toronto.
Ortiz was emotional following the fight saying he wanted to fight one more time before walking off into the sunset.
"Im going to take a little time off. I'm going to enjoy Christmas with my family," Ortiz told UFC analyst Joe Rogan. "I have one more fight left on my contract so hopefully Dana [White] will let me honor that out, get me one more fight."
Ortiz went down on a huge knee from "Lil Nog" with 3:36 left in the first. On the ground, Nogueira pounded away at Ortiz's body. He got off 67 shots, many of the vicious elbows and punches to Tito's right side.
He did major damage on the 53rd and 54th shots. On strike No. 60, Ortiz winced and rolled to his side. Two more heavy shots to the ribs and Ortiz stopped defending himself. He had to be saved. When the former UFC light heavyweight champ sat up, he immediately grabbed the area around the ribs on his left side.
Ortiz, 36, set a record tonight walking into the UFC's Octagon for the 26th time. He's never fought for another MMA promotion.
"My goal in my career was to go 15 years, be the longest UFC figher in this cage. I've done that tonight. I'm gonna get one more. I'm going to give it my all, get a W and that'll be all for me."
Whether Nogueira was trying to or not, he found a weak area on Ortiz. Tito admitted it after the loss.
"He caught me clean in the same place I got hit versus Rashad [Evans]," Ortiz said. Evans essentially ended their fight at UFC 133 by landing a knee on Ortiz's sternum. "He hurt me. I tried to get up. Everytime he hit me there I felt the wind go out of me."
Nogueira, a big star in Japan with PRIDE, is starting develop a strong reputation with the UFC. The 35-year-old is 20-5 and 3-2 in the UFC. He needed this one badly having lost to Phil Davis and Ryan Bader in his last two fights.
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