Tito Ortiz is on the receiving end of a serious legal attack -- one that started after the UFC legend bashed "Rampage" Jackson's former trainer to the media.
The guy filing the lawsuit is Juanito Ibarra -- a fighting expert who claims he's trained more than 15 world champs and several Olympic Gold Medal winners. Ibarra's pissed over an interview Tito gave to a website back in 2008, in which the fighter ripped Ibarra as a "thief" who had financially "taken advantage of Rampage."
In the lawsuit, filed today in L.A. County Superior Court, Ibarra claims Tito's statements are all false and "highly offensive" -- and things got worse when scores of sports websites began publishing follow-up stories, repeating Tito's comments.
Ibarra is suing Tito and all the blogs and publications that ran Tito's interview for defamation, invasion of privacy and emotional distress.
He is going to have a really hard time with this lawsuit if they consider him a public figure. The standard for libel is extremely high for public figures and if(more like when) Ibarra is classified as a public figure his case is going straight to the dump.
Let me say now I don't like Juanito Ibarra this is because of things I have heard from people in the boxing game that are very good friends of mine. But what Tito did was hurt his image as a trainer and that's what makes or breaks trainers. As a trainer myself word of mouth is everything and when a high profile fighter comes out and calls you basically a thief to the press it spreads like wild fire among the fight industry. Now Juanito Ibarra didn't have the greatest rep to speak of at least not from what I have heard the past 5 or so years about him. But that still doesn't give Tito the right to bad mouth the guy and call him a thief to the press when Tito only had part of the story and has never worked with him before. It would like a big name Scientist coming out and saying Coke Cola causes warts without having any of the facts and just going off hearsay. That's defamation plan and simple. So is he right to sue Tito? Very much so, but going after the bloggers and media outlets that ran the story is just plan dumb and hurts his image even more. So he is making what Tito said look to be true and makes it look even more like he is looking for a big payday and less like he is trying to show what Tito said isn't true.
Ibarra is not a public figure. He is a businessman. Tito's needs to save his trash talking for his fights. Tito had to know what he was saying would be reproduced a million times on the internet, and this would eventually take away from Ibarra's income.
Not saying that dude is a quality trainer or not (I've never trained with him), but no matter how Tito feels about him, Ibarra has a right to feed his kids and not be (financially) jeopardized by Tito's obscenely giant mouth.
