Tito Ortiz to Debut at Affliction 2?

Could Tito Ortiz be making his debut for Affliction?

Current UFC light heavyweight Tito Ortiz (15-6-1) will likely leave the organization to sign with Affliction, where he's expected to fight Renato "Babalu" Sobral (30-7) at the rookie organization's October show.

Steve Cofield of Yahoo! Sports, citing sources close to the fight, says the Ortiz vs. Sobral bout will co-headline the Oct. 11 Affliction event, which features a main event of Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski.

As MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) previously reported, Sobral expressed interest in fighting Ortiz right after his victory over Mike Whitehead at Affliction's first show earlier this month.

"I'm looking for [a] guy," Sobral said. "Wait for the name. It's coming. I think (Affliction Vice President) Tom (Atencio) is going to bring a name for me. And I'll be here to kick his ass."

Sobral confirmed it was Ortiz when further probed.

"That's my dream fight," a smiling Sobral said.

Ortiz says a non-compete clause with his most recent UFC contract expires Aug. 5, after which time he becomes a free agent. Perhaps not coincidentally, Affliction has a press conference tentatively scheduled for Aug. 6. Details of Affliction's Oct. 11 event, which takes place at the Thomas & Mack Center on the UNLV campus in Las Vegas, will be revealed during the media gathering.

However, just days after Sobral's comments about wanting to fight Ortiz, Atencio spoke to MMAjunkie.com and played it cool when asked about Ortiz.

"[Signing Ortiz"> is definitely not a priority, but it is something that when he's finished with his contract -- I know [the UFC"> has a negotiation period and some kind of a grace period -- when he's done with that, we can talk to him," Atencio said. "If that's a fight that seems financially viable, then absolutely. It's going to come down to dollars and cents, and it's going to come down to if it works for us."

Ortiz, who suffered a unanimous-decision loss to Lyoto Machida in his most recent fight, has been one of the UFC's biggest pay-per-view draws throughout his career. And though Atencio is well aware of that fact, he stressed that possibility of signing Ortiz would have to make financial sense for the company, which dished out a hefty disclosed payroll of $3.3 million for its first event.

In addition to Affliction, Ortiz has expressed interest in possibly signing with EliteXC or Strikeforce -- or even starting his own fight promotion.

Sources: http://mmajunkie.com/news/4917/tito-ort ... n-show.mma, Yahoo.com/ 411MANIA.COM