Love him or hate, you know who he is, and that's the way he likes it.

You've watched him disrespect your favorite fighters with a brash cockiness that begged to be rooted against -- and then you watched him beat your favorite fighter to a pulp while he bragged about it.

You read the T-shirts, bought into the anti-establishment bad boy image and watched him reign over the UFC light heavyweight division for over three years as the one of the sports first true superstars; all the while ruffling every feather he came across with his proverbial middle finger held high.

You cheered as the old man spanked him, watched on the edge of your seat as he fell to the brutal KO artist, tuned in in record numbers to watch him compete, and love him or hate him, you were enthralled by him.

But do you really know him?

Brought up literally on the mean streets of Huntington Beach California, Tito Ortiz has had to fight his entire life. The son of an American mother and Mexican father, both addicted to drugs, Ortiz spent the early part of life with very little stability. It's a familiar tale, but one that must be understood if one is to understand the man.

"I was a beach kid all the way up until about 6 years old, then my mother and father got addicted to drugs and I was moving from motel to motel... peoples garages, cars, with them and their addiction," Ortiz told MMA Fight Corner presented by FiveKnuckles.com. "I guess I just kinda survived. I survived through a lot. Fishing saved me a lot when I was younger. I went to the pier in Newport and fished a lot. When I got into high school wrestling saved me."

Wrestling, was Ortiz's saving grace. Having never wrestled before his sophomore year at Hunington Beach High School, Ortiz placed fourth in the state wrestling tournament as a senior, but he admits it wasn't always a smooth ride to the top.

"High school was tough," Ortiz said. "Anytime wrestling was over, I'd get in trouble there in the summertime. I went to the (Juvenal) Hall a few times, I learned from my mistakes. I was an adolescent who had no focus at all. I think wrestling was the only thing that really saved me because I got things from my wrestling family that I never got from my real family."

After high school and without wrestling to occupy his time, Ortiz fell back into old familiar patterns. He began spending time with the wrong crowd and got addicted to drugs - until wrestling stepped in to save him once again.

"There was a year and a half after high school before I went to college that I kinda... I hung around the wrong people." Ortiz said. "I got addicted to drugs myself kinda. I lost myself and there was this wrestling coach that saw me at a club and he was like, 'What are you doing to yourself? You don't look too good.' And I was like, 'I look fine.' But, I went and looked in the mirror that night, didn't recognize myself. I was 180-pounds at 6'2" and I really didn't recognize the person I was.

"He told me that if I was to come down to his office he'd get me into the junior college there and start wrestling again, said it would probably be good for me. So when I didn't recognize myself in the mirror, I said,...