LEE COUNTY, Fla. — For more than two decades, Tito Ortiz was known as the Huntington Beach Bad Boy, racking up five light heavyweight UFC championships, starring on The Ultimate Fighter, and fighting in one of the best-selling pay-per-view fight nights in US history.
“Bleach blonde hair, flames on his shorts, and I had that charisma of the bad boy image,” Ortiz said. “If you walk the walk, you gotta talk the talk.”
But it all stemmed from his days wrestling in high school in Huntington, California.
“I never wrestled ever before,” Ortiz said. “I’ve always watched WWF, which is WWE now, watching Hulk Hogan like, ‘Say your prayers, take your vitamins, brother.’ That’s the stuff I grew up on. I was all in as a freshman, and I just had the emotions to work hard. The physical stuff came along through the years.”
Ortiz may not be fighting for himself inside the ring anymore, but just two years after retirement, he just could not stay away.
After coming to Southwest Florida to help in Hurricane Ian recovery, Ortiz and his family have made Cape Coral their home.
His twin sons Journey and Jesse joined the Ida Baker wrestling team – since it runs in their blood – and he learned that the team needed some coaching help.
“He said coach, ‘If you need help, I can help.’ And my first thought was, ‘We are not affording to have a coach like this,’ and he said, ‘No, I will do this for free,’” Katarzyna Lapinska Jablonski, Ida Baker teacher and coach, said.
“It’s important to me to form these men, and that is what formed me as a man,” Ortiz said. “People call me Tito. My name is Tito as a fighter, but my true name is Jacob, and in the Bible, Jacob wrestled against an Angel. The angel beat him and saved his life. I found wrestling, and it saved my life. So if I’m going to have the opportunity to show kids wrestling also, maybe I’ll save a kid’s life.”
So, what’s it like to have a UFC Hall of Fame as a coach? The kids all say it’s amazing.
Ortiz just started volunteering at the beginning of December, and the Bulldogs say they’ve already seen a huge difference.
“It’s hard work,” Ida Baker junior Gage Blanchard said. “It’s fun, and I like it, but it’s very hard work. Definitely.”
“Yeah, he definitely taught us some new techniques, and he’s made us stronger so far,” senior Ricardo Villaquiran said.
Other schools are seeing it too.
“Coaches from other schools [are] sending me emails and information that we did amazingly well, and [our] progress compared to last year is tremendous,” Lapinska Jablonski said.
And more importantly for Ortiz, they’ve learned a lot off the mat, too.
“He teaches dedication, respect, discipline,” Journey Ortiz, Tito’s son and Ida Baker freshman, said. “Also try hard, don’t give up.”
“Hopefully, I’m able to rub off on other kids the same way of being mentally tough, emotionally tough, physically tough, but just nice guys all around,” Ortiz said. “We’re gonna get the best out of life, and I’m gonna get the best out of them as long as they give me the opportunity.”