Sherdog.com's Greg Savage sat down with Tito Ortiz for an interview that has some great insight into the mindset of Ortiz as he steps into the Octagon for his last fight for the UFC this weekend against Lyoto Machida. Savage asked Ortiz during the interview to tell the camera a few good things that Dana White has done for him and the sport in the past. The answers were very interesting and should give fans a look at what the beef is between Ortiz and the UFC. Check it out here, props to Greg Savage.

Ortiz talks about Dana White's tenacity as a manager and as a businessman and how the two occupations differed in many ways. He stated that he loved having White on his side when negotiating contracts, but he became a monster once he took over the UFC with the Fertitta's. He mentions the evidence of Dana White's obsession with becoming a superstar. Namely, he talked about Dana White being focused on heavily in the Ultimate Fighter reality series.

One of the more intriguing ideas Ortiz threw around were once again the figures. He talked about the million dollar deals that the UFC has been pushing, and the fighters aren't seeing any of the benefits. He named off the SpikeTV $100 million dollar deal as a basis for one of his arguments.

The lowdown

Ortiz actually makes some solid points. Although his numbers aren't accurate, the machine that is the UFC remains the biggest money making venture in MMA today. In fact, they make much more than any other promotion in the game right now. With many of the North American promotions failing, the UFC stands to make even more money through sponsorships, events, and exploring new markets. Add in the fact that MMA is pushing to be sanctioned in new states, the UFC could make a killing in some of the larger markets such as New York City.

So, does Tito have a point? Should the fighters be making more money? Of course they should! Although the pay has steadily increased a bit, the UFC still makes much more than the total fight purses at each event. The one underlying factor that we don't know is the percentage of cuts they must give to PPV providers, PPV revenue agreements in contracts to fighters, and production costs.

Has the UFC shit all over Tito Ortiz? In my mind, it's hard to really say without accurate numbers, but Tito Ortiz did manage to help make the UFC relevant throughout it's infancy. The problem for Ortiz is that today is what gets you the big money, and today... he isn't the world championship caliber fighter that he once was. A big win for Ortiz on Saturday could very well put him back into that class though, so this could be a do-or-die fight for his career to take back off again.