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Featured Image Credit: Getty Images
Topics: Dana White, UFC, MMA
Ryan Baldi
UFC president Dana White has named his single favourite moment in Octagon history.
The outspoken fight promotor was answering fan-submitted questions for GQ's YouTube channel when he was asked which fight gave him the most satisfaction.
White didn't hesitate as he named a bout from 2004 that saw Tito Ortiz – a former friend and management client turned enemy of the UFC head honcho – unceremoniously outclassed.
"When Chuck Liddell knocked Tito Ortiz out," White said. "That was my favourite, favourite moment that has ever happened in UFC history."
Ortiz was one of the early stars of the UFC, peaking at the beginning of the 2000s when he beat Wanderlei Silva for the vacant light heavyweight title and successfully defended the belt five times before losing it to Randy Couture at UFC 44 in 2003.
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After dropping a unanimous, five-round decision to Couture, Ortiz's bounce-back fight was a grudge match with Liddell, a hard-hitting, mohawk-sporting striker who, like White, didn't care much for the bleach-blonde former champion.
Lidell brutally knocked out Ortiz with a barrage of strikes just 38 seconds into the second round.
Ortiz fought on for another 15 years. As his star waned, he began to struggle in the Octagon, with just one win from his last nine fights with the UFC. But he finished his career on a high, recording three successive victories with other fight promotions before hanging up his gloves.
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White and Ortiz almost came to blows in an effort to settle their years-long dispute. Ortiz agreed to work opposite Ken Shamrock as a coach on the third series of The Ultimate Fighter – which was eventually won by British future middleweight champion Michael Bisping – on the condition that White would agree to fight him in a boxing match.
"I had to go through all the stuff with the commission," White explained in 2014. "Which I still to this day believe, it created a lot of bad animosity between me and the commission trying to get licensed for that fight. But they did it. They licensed me. I went through all the medical testing, everything, and then Tito ends up bailing on that thing the day of the weigh-ins."