Bellator 142: Liam McGeary Defeats MMA Legend Tito Ortiz

On Saturday night, Bellator 142 took place. The main event was the Bellator light heavyweight champion, Liam McGeary, against MMA legend Tito Ortiz.

The fight may have been the last chance that Ortiz had at winning a title. Initially, Ortiz looked as if he was going to win gold, but he was stopped in his tracks. From out of nowhere, McGeary managed to submit Ortiz via an inverted triangle choke, according to MMA Junkie.

Ortiz vs McGeary took place after the preliminary bouts, which included both MMA bouts and kickboxing bouts.

In the first round, Ortiz managed to take McGeary down and started to get to work on McGeary. McGeary did attempt to get an armbar on Ortiz, but Ortiz managed to evade McGeary’s attempts.

Eventually, McGeary slapped an inverted triangle choke from the bottom, and Ortiz was in trouble. At just under five minutes into the bout, Ortiz was forced to tap, as he knew he was stuck.

After it was all said and done, Ortiz praised McGeary, saying that he was the champ because he defeated the best. Ortiz told McGeary that he worked very hard and he has felt better than he has ever felt since 2006, and he said he respected McGeary.

McGeary was asked to dissect his win over Ortiz, as Yahoo reported. However, he didn’t have much to say about what had happened. The champion said that he had worked on his wrestling and that he was going to be unstoppable. Also, as the referee raised McGeary’s hand in victory, Ortiz took the title and put it around McGeary’s waist.

According to the Bleacher Report, McGeary’s win over Ortiz marks his first successful title defense since winning the title back at Bellator 134, which is where he fought Emanuel Newton.

Ortiz was able to earn himself a shot at McGeary after he defeated Alexander Shlemenko, as well as Stephan Bonnar. When Ortiz first came to Bellator, he was coming in after a 1-6 streak in the UFC.

As of right now, it is not known whether or not Ortiz will be retiring from MMA or if he will continue to fight in Bellator. Ortiz has yet to mentioned whether or not he plans on fighting again. As for McGeary, his next opponent will be Phil Davis. Davis ended up winning a one-night four-man tournament earlier in the night, and that win has earned him a title shot at McGeary.

[Image by Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images]