Sonnen claims Ortiz verbally tapped in 1st fight, calls for rematch

Chael Sonnen still has a bone to pick with Tito Ortiz.

The two MMA stars seemingly settled their beef this past January at Bellator 170 when Ortiz defeated Sonnen by first-round submission after months of trash talk in what was billed as the 42-year-old Ortiz's final professional fight.

Less than a month later, Ortiz offered to step up at the last second to fight Fedor Emelianenko at Bellator 172 after Emelianenko's original opponent Matt Mitrione fell ill due to kidney stones. The implication was that this was a one-time offer, but apparently it was enough to convince Sonnen to campaign for another fight with Ortiz.

On a recent episode of his "You're Welcome" podcast, Sonnen claimed that Ortiz verbally tapped out in their first fight when Sonnen briefly had him trapped in a guillotine choke, and that a "rubber match" between the two makes sense since Sonnen owns a win over Ortiz from back in their amateur wrestling days.

"The only reason I kept my mouth shut at the Tito fight - look, Tito tapped in that fight. I knew Tito tapped when he tapped. I heard Tito verbally tap and I've never said a word about it, privately to Tito at the press conference or to you guys," Sonnen said, according to Jed Meshew of MMA Fighting. "I never said anything and the reason is, first off, when you lose, you just take your loss. It's not a tap if the referee doesn't call it a tap so therefore, Tito didn't tap. I thought he tapped, and I let a move go.

"He verbally tapped, and I never said anything about it and the reason was, he quit the sport five seconds later. He quit the sport five seconds after I tapped and he quit the sport a minute and five seconds after he tapped. There was no rematch. There was nothing to build and no reason to tell the real story."

Sonnen insisted that he would have left the matter alone were it not for Ortiz's bid to fight Emelianenko. Now he is determined to get one more match with Ortiz, if only because he believes he has to scrape himself off the bottom of the MMA barrel.

"Tito's the worst fighter in the sport," Sonnen said. "We were fighting for title. I took his title. I am now the worst fighter in the sport. Whoever I fight next, if I win that fight, he then becomes the worst fighter because I've officially got the crown, and that's tough."

The comments made their way to Ortiz who responded succinctly on Twitter: