The fight came and went last month with Tito Ortiz getting his hand raised after beating Alberto Del Rio, who is now reflecting on it.
The former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion beat the former WWE Champion by first-round rear-naked choke submission in a 210 catchweight bout. The fight took place at the Payne Arena in Hidalgo, Texas that aired on pay-per-view for $29.99.
Del Rio spoke MMA Junkie for his first interview since the fight where he reflected on this tough loss in this interview.
“I was very upset, and people are never going to know what goes on in the mind of a fighter or athlete after losing a fight,” Del Rio said. “You have live another battle because you have to deal with the fact that you lost in a fight, that there’s a better man than you, that you trained so hard for so many months and that wasn’t enough.
“But after processing the loss, I felt good about it because I trained hard, I gave it my all in the training camp. It was tough adapting to the cage and I think a lot of people don’t understand.”
Alberto Del Rio Reflects
What’s interesting is the fact that Del Rio thinks that he could’ve won the fight. The reason for that is due to him thinking that he made two costly mistakes that he can fix.
“I think I could’ve won that fight, I really do,” Del Rio said. “I made some mistakes with the strategy. but once again the would’ve doesn’t exist. Ring rust is real and it was there. I made two big mistakes and with someone as experienced as Tito that’s deadly.”
Del Rio has a background as a pro-MMA fighter. Before this fight, his previous bout took place at a Cage of Combat show in Madrid, Spain in 2010 where he lost to Yamamoto Hanshi by second-round TKO.
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