Sherdog’s Top 10: MMA Rivalries

7. Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock

All three of their fights were one-sided in Ortiz’s favor, but their hatred for another burned white hot. It all dates to UFC 18, where, after smashing Lion’s Den rep Jerry Bohlander, Ortiz donned a T-shirt that read, “I Just [Expletive] Your Ass.” He followed it with an equally dominant performance against Guy Mezger, another member of Shamrock’s Lion’s Den, and sported a post-fight T-shirt that read, “Gay Mezger is my bitch.”

Shamrock was enraged by the disrespect, climbed on top of the Octagon and screamed at Ortiz. The feud was born. The two archrivals squared off for Ortiz’s light heavyweight title at UFC 40, but “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” pounded Shamrock to smithereens and forced a corner stoppage between rounds three and four. The event drew more than 150,000 pay-per-view buys -- huge business for the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 2002. Shamrock and Ortiz later coached opposite one another on Season 3 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” leading to a rematch at UFC 61. Elbows from Ortiz brought it to a close in 78 seconds, despite Shamrock’s protests.

The third Ortiz-Shamrock showdown took place at a UFC Fight Night event on Oct. 10, 2006 in Hollywood, Florida. There, Ortiz put away “The World’s Most Dangerous Man” with ground-and-pound 2:23 into round one, walking away with a 3-0 sweep in their head-to-head series. No one should expect these two to exchange Christmas cards in the future.

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