my.nwi.com

MATT ERICKSON
cagedin.mma@gmail.com

LAS VEGAS | This time, the roles were reversed.

Tito Ortiz, fighting for the first time in 18 months, found himself on the losing end of a close split decision to Forrest Griffin. The last time the two fighters met, at UFC 59, Ortiz won a split decision.

The first round was close. Ortiz used his superior wrestling to score a takedown and was able to land several shots on the ground. For the most part, he weathered Griffin’s standup attack, though Griffin was able to catch Ortiz with a few kicks and combinations.

In the second, Ortiz was able to take Griffin down twice and bloodied Griffin’s forehead with an elbow. Late in the round, though, Griffin rallied and reversed Ortiz and was in top position on the ground.

The third was never in doubt. Ortiz was gassed and could do very little but take whatever Griffin was able to dish out.

From the second the fight was over, it reeked of another split decision — just like their last fight. And when the scores were read, Griffin came out ahead 28-29, 30-27, 29-28.

After the fight, UFC president Dana White said he doesn’t know how he would score the fight, but the 30-27 for Griffin was off base.

“The 30-27 is outrageous,” White said. “I can understand 10-8 in the last round, but 30-27?”

Ortiz said he believed he won the fight.

“I gave my heart and soul out there,” Ortiz said. “I put myself up in Big Bear (training) for seven weeks. We put in ground work, the weightlifting, the running. I come in and I fight. I thought I won the fight. I thought I pulled it off two rounds to one.”

Griffin, who arrived at the press conference late after needing stitches, was in high spirits and joked by asking himself a question and then answering it. In the end, he, as well as Ortiz — and, to some degree, White — thought the two coaching against each other on a future season of “The Ultimate Fighter” would be a good idea. And presumably, the rubber match in a potential Ortiz-Griffin trilogy would take place after that.

Ortiz, at one point, got choked up mentioning that he fights to feed his family, including his new twins with his wife, adult film star Jenna Jameson. But he repeated that “it is what it is.”

In the night’s co-main event, Josh Koscheck survived some big shots from Anthony Johnson, ate a glancing knee while he was on the ground and an inadvertent eye poke and went on to take Johnson down and submit him with a rear naked choke.

The win won him two UFC bonus awards — Submission of the Night and Fight of the Night — and an additional $140,000 to go with his show check and win bonus.

After the fight, Koscheck called out fellow welterweight Dan Hardy, who was sitting Octagonside, and said it should be he, not Hardy, who gets next crack at Georges St-Pierre’s welterweight title. Hardy just beat Koscheck’s American Kickboxing Academy teammate Mike Swick at UFC 105 last week.

But White said at the post-fight press conference that Hardy would still get St-Pierre next. Koscheck, though, remains squarely in the mix with his second straight victory, third in four fights — and his first submission in more than three years.

Also on the main card, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, twin brother of UFC star Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, earned Knockout of the Night honors with his first-round stoppage of Luiz Cane. Paul Thiago stopped Jacob Volkmann in a back-and-forth unanimous decision. And Amir Sadollah punished Phil Baroni, fighting in the UFC for the first time since UFC 51, for three rounds to win a unanimous decision.