Nonsense. There isn't an old school fan in the world that doesn't know Coleman was the man who brought Ground-N-Pound into MMA. Randy Couture debuted in the UFC the same night as Tito Ortiz did. Do you know what made Randy get into MMA? By his own words... watching Mark Coleman have great success. So... your timeline really isn't helping your cause. There wasn't too much of a wait or "proving your worth" process to get into the UFC at that time. Mark Coleman was already Champion of UFC 10 & 11 AND won the "Ultimate Ultimate Title" at UFC 12 (UFC record of 6-0) before Tito Ortiz debuted in MMA. So no... there wasn't a "committee effort". Coleman had already become famous for the Ground -N- Pound before Tito entered into the sport.
Punches on the ground existed before UFC 10. Coleman was one of the first to popularize GNP as an effective style for a wide audience, yes (and arguably the very first). That doesn't mean he invented it, or that the majority of fighters with stronger backgrounds in wrestling than striking or submission grappling wouldn't have come to the common-sense realization that taking opponents down and hitting them was going to work best for them anyway. Also, Ortiz did not enter the sport because of watching Coleman's success - he began his work with Tank in 1995. He was already cross-training and had his eye on a UFC contract before Coleman made himself famous. He didn't rush into it like Couture must have. He took his time and honed his jiu-jitsu and boxing before ever competing (way ahead of his time, if you want to talk about paving the way).
Funny... because Tito said that he was only 6 months into training MMA before his first UFC fight. My first UFC fight was in 1997. I stopped my guy, Wes Albritton, in 21 seconds. I won that match and then I ended up in the finals where I lost a controversial match to Guy Mezger…I was only six months into training in MMA (mixed martial arts). I was still a young kid, but it seemed like the more I learned the better I got, and the better I liked it. At that time everything just seemed to snowball. - Tito Ortiz http://www.oyemag.com/tito.html
He's said elsewhere that it was two years. :conf "I met a fighter by the name of "Tank" Abbott, who still fights today, by the way, and he needed a training partner. I was at Golden West Junior College at the time, and was wrestling at the collegiate level and coaching. I worked out with Tank for about 2 years, from 1995 until 1997, and learned everything I could. I fought my first fight on May 30, 1997. I really had had a crash course in jiu-jitsu over the course of 4 or 5 months. So when I stepped into the Octagon, I knew two arts — wrestling and jiu-jitsu, and I won. It’s much tougher today, no doubt." http://www.maxmuscle.com/article/43/ So assuming he's not contradicting himself, the "MMA" he's referring to in your quote above seems to be more specifically referring to JJ. That doesn't mean he wasn't doing any cross training in that first year-and-a-half. Most likely Tank was swapping his boxing and streetfighting "expertise" for Ortiz's wrestling in their time together. Tank got the better of the deal in the short-term, but obviously it worked out best for Tito in the long run. The bottom line is that he had his eyes on the prize before UFC10.
Seems like he said the same thing in both. It's common knowledge that when he was first with Tank, he was only there because Tank needed someone to wrestle with. He was just wrestling... which he already did anyways. Actually, in the article you provided... he is now saying that he only trained for 4-5 months in JJ. Quite a different tune than you were singing about "taking the time and honed his JJ and boxing" and "having an eye on the UFC contract before Mark Coleman ever became famous". Hell, Tito never even mentioned working on striking... and actually said that he only knew two arts... wrestling and JJ (which he was only training for 4-5 months) By Tito's own account in both examples provided... he never even began training for an MMA fight until Mark Coleman had already won UFC 10 & 11. Sometimes you need to just admit when you were wrong, and move on.:good
I was wrong off memory about how long he'd done jiu jitsu. :good I'm positive he's been on record more than once saying that the reason he agreed to help Tank with his wrestling in the first place is he because he saw Tank as a way to get his own foot in the door of the UFC. If that's true - and they began working together in 1995 - then his original inspiration to work towards entry into the UFC could not possibly have been seeing Mark Coleman's rise in 1996, as you say was Couture's original inspiration. Also - while he didn't credit any one specific discipline along with the primary two (his bread and butter wrestling and his newfound jiu-jitsu) he almost certainly learned the basics of striking from Tank. It's called reading between the lines. You can't possibly think that Ortiz went into that 1st match having never spent a single session in the gym working mitts or otherwise picking Tank's brain...most likely he spent many such sessions. Tank (while he does have some piddling background in boxing, I'm foggy on exactly how much of one ie whether he competed as an amateur or just trained in it) doesn't have a specific discipline per se - unless you count "pitfighting" as a real discipline (it isn't) - which is why Ortiz wouldn't have claimed to know more than two. That doesn't mean he didn't pick up a good foundation in striking from their two years of cooperation. When he says "I worked out with Tank for about 2 years, from 1995 until 1997, and learned everything I could." - what exactly do you think he's referring to? He was supposed to be the teacher on the wrestling end of things. So what exactly was he learning from Tank in turn, if not striking? Certainly Tank wasn't his source for JJ (and we know from above that his training in that didn't come until the tail end of that period). So I was wrong about him getting a big headstart in non-wrestling grappling before turning pro...but certainly not about him having had an earlier inspiration than Coleman to get in the cage, and more than likely not about him having had some semblance of cross-training before Coleman's first appearance.