Tito Ortiz wasn’t about to let a $1,000 ticket stop him from showing up, but he apparently wasn’t expecting to pay that much just to get into a UFC event, either. The UFC Hall of Famer claims Dana White turned down his request for a free ticket to a Miami event, leaving him to buy his own way in. And it cost him a pretty penny.

‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ opened up about the situation during a recent interview with Ariel Helwani, where he also spoke about what he sees as a lack of recognition for former UFC stars.

“Yes,” Ortiz replied when asked if it bothers him that UFC legends are not offered tickets or front-row appearances at events. “And then it goes to trying to get tickets to Miami.

“There was an event in Miami, and I asked just for one ticket, and they said no. So I ended up buying a ticket. It cost me a thousand dollars.”

Tito Ortiz also believes his long-running feud with UFC CEO Dana White had something to do with the decision. And judging by his comments, he’s not exactly losing sleep over it.

“Dana just doesn’t like me,” he said. “And like I say, I’m not gonna sit here and beg. I’m not begging for anything. If that’s the way he feels, okay. It is what it is.

“He’s making millions and millions. Gambling millions and millions every night, but to take care of the guys that got him here… Let’s be honest. I don’t want anything from them. I laid in my own bed. I made it. I’m laying in it. I’m okay with it. It is what it is.”

The 51-year-old wasn’t just talking about the ticket, either. He also took aim at what he sees as a double standard when it comes to how sports legends are treated.

The former UFC light heavyweight champion compared MMA with football and basketball, where retired stars are often welcomed back and given a front-row seat. According to Tito Ortiz, MMA fighters deserve that same kind of recognition.

“But like you were talking about football players, basketball players, they’re sitting front row. I think they deserved it,” he continued. “MMA fighters, same thing. Randy Couture, myself, Rampage [Jackson], [Tiki] Ghosn, so many other fighters that have spoken up and have pretty much almost been erased from UFC.

“And that’s one thing they can’t do though because of the fans. The fans will never forget us.”

‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ and Dana White’s relationship has been one of the messiest in MMA history. The two were once close, but things went south during tense contract negotiations, and their friendship eventually turned into a full-blown rivalry.

At one point, the feud got so heated that Tito Ortiz and the head honcho were even scheduled to face each other in a boxing match in 2007. The bout, however, never materialized.

It is also worth noting that this isn’t the first time Ortiz has raised the issue of UFC legends getting tickets. Back in May, he claimed he should be receiving free entry to UFC events after spending 16 years helping build the promotion.

“I wish I was invited to the White House card, and I’m not,” Tito Ortiz said at the time. “After the 16 years I gave to them, from the very beginning, when they first bought the company, to almost the end, where they sold the company. I don’t get tickets. I gotta pay for my own tickets when I do want to go.

“The last time they had a Miami event, I had to pay $1,000 for a ticket. If you’re on Dana’s good side, you don’t have to pay for anything. I get it. He said if you want to be a good friend, I’m a good friend. He goes, but if you want to be an enemy, I’m good at that also.”

However, the UFC White House event was an invite-only show and reportedly resulted in a loss of around $30 million. With tickets in short supply, it is no surprise that Dana White may have had little interest in handing them out to former fighters with whom he still has unresolved issues.

Still, Tito Ortiz’s latest comments suggest that the bad blood between the former business partners hasn’t completely gone away. That’s despite the 51-year-old being inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame back in 2012, the closest he and the CEO have come to putting an end to the feud.

In fact, ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ now even accepts that he truly was the one to blame for souring the relationship, as Dana White once claimed while calling the UFC legend ‘dumb.’

Dana White blames ‘Dumb’ Tito Ortiz for failed relationship

In the same Ariel Helwani interview, Tito Ortiz finally admitted that he believes he deserves some of the blame for how things fell apart with Dana White. So, while the bad blood is still there, he’s not pretending he had nothing to do with it.

“I’ve tried to reach out a few times. I’ve tried to do interviews and apologize, just saying that I’m sorry for what I did. I was a young kid,” Ortiz told Uncrowned. “I said some things about him a few times that I probably shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have went over and above, but I didn’t understand.

“Negotiation tactics that I learned from him, I tried to use his own negotiation tactics on himself, which I shouldn’t have done that. I was influenced by others that I shouldn’t have been influenced by. I should have thought what I thought and what was right. I made some bad decisions, and I’ve tried to apologize for that.”

In fact, in an interview with Big Boy TV back in 2023, Dana White said something similar, as he believes he could’ve had a real good relationship with the former fighter; however, the UFC head honcho did not mince words.

“Tito’s just a really dumb human being, he’s not intelligent at all, very, very f—— stupid, okay? Let’s start there,” White said. “I mean, look at him speak publicly any time.

“Look—Google ‘Tito Ortiz talking’. I don’t have any beef with Tito anymore. You know you’re f—— stupid, Tito; you know you are.”

Dana White has his own version of how things went down. He recalled Ortiz allegedly threatening to pull out of fights unless he received more money, even after the deals had already been agreed upon.

“We’d be coming up to a big fight on Saturday, right?” White continued. “Deals have been done for months. Tito would call and say, ‘I’m not going to show up unless you pay me another $150,000’ or whatever the number was. He would do this on the regular. And I would go f—— crazy.

“He destroyed what could have been an incredible relationship because we loved Tito at the time. Tito was our guy. Tito was my guy. Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta loved Tito. And he absolutely destroyed a relationship that he could have had for the rest of his life. Over nickels—nickels, in the big picture.”

Well, it’s sad to see how things fared out between the two. Tito Ortiz is now retired and hasn’t competed in MMA since 2019. For now, he is fully focused on running Tito’s Cantina in Florida.

While his fighting career is largely behind him, his contributions to the UFC’s early growth are really tough to overlook. Back when MMA was still fighting for mainstream acceptance, the 51-year-old was one of the key figures helping the UFC find its footing.

When Zuffa, led by the Fertitta brothers and Dana White, purchased the promotion in 2001, the UFC was losing money and still searching for recognizable stars. It was ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ who soon became the UFC light heavyweight champion and one of the promotion’s biggest attractions, helping bring attention to the sport during a crucial period of its growth.

Then came UFC 40. His highly anticipated title defense against Ken Shamrock reportedly drew 150,000 buys, roughly three times the promotion’s usual numbers. Suddenly, the UFC had something it desperately needed: proof that MMA could actually sell.

So when Tito Ortiz says he helped build the UFC, he’s not exactly talking about a minor contribution. And that’s why he was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2012, but sadly that recognition hasn’t exactly translated into the kind of relationship with Dana White and the promotion that some would expect when it comes to a legend of his stature.