25-Years Later, UFC Legend, Who Beefed With Dana White, Confesses He Wasn’t ‘Paid’ Just Like Joe Rogan in the Initial Days

Paddy Pimblett is one of the most recent stars of the octagon. ‘The Baddy’ graced the UFC for the first time on 4 September 2021 and has become one of the most noted faces of the promotion. His extraordinary ground game and friendly persona outside the octagon have gained him unmatched popularity.

Pimblett runs his own YouTube channel too, where he uploads videos of his daily life. He also conducts a few podcast-themed videos named ‘Chatting Pony Podcast’ where he is joined by various sporting personalities. Lately, Pimblett uploaded a video where he was joined by the former UFC light heavyweight champion and UFC Hall of Famer, Tito Ortiz.

The two discussed a variety of stuff along with the exceptional career of Ortiz. The ‘Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ also revealed that he fought his first UFC fight for free.

Tito Ortiz’s disclosure had Paddy Pimblett in shock

Pimblett started things by questioning Ortiz, “When you were in the UFC, it was in the dark ages of the sport… What was your sort of wrestling background?”. 

After stating that he had wrestled in high school and junior college, Ortiz went on to describe that he didn’t really know how to fight as he went on toward his first UFC fight.

Ortiz further revealed that “My first fight in UFC 13, May 30th, 1997, I fought as an amateur”. He also said, “I fought free”.

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The veteran fighter also narrated how he was “the only UFC fighter in the UFC history that fought for free”. Ortiz said that he fought because he “loved it”. Tito further talked about winning his first fight in ’22 seconds’ and also losing out his second one against ‘Guy Mezger’ due to a ‘choke’.

He intended to put up an example of outstanding stamina, saying, “I fought twice in one night, then I fought for free”. Ortiz reiterated, “like I said, Ortiz is the only UFC fighter to do that”.

Interestingly, Ortiz and White did not have a good working relationship. They once almost got into a boxing match because of their issues.

Joe Rogan was also subjected to a similar fate

Despite having a net worth of about $120M today, Joe Rogan had to go through a similar experience. UFC president, Dana White had claimed that ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ host worked on the first 12 events of his UFC career for free.

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White also mentioned that it was Rogan’s love for MMA, which had him working as an MMA commentator for free. Those were the dark days of the UFC with limited revenues when MMA wasn’t a mainstream sport. But looking at the gigantic stature of the UFC today, do you think any UFC fighter will ever have to fight for free?