Tito Ortiz has not won a fight in three years, has not held the light heavyweight title in more than six and has not competed since May 2008. But when he steps in to face Forrest Griffin for a second time on Saturday, his name and persona will likely contribute to an appreciable level of business for the UFC -- possibly more than some of their current champions, or athletes riding multifight win streaks.

By sporting standards, Ortiz is a cartoon: bleached hair, exaggerated sneer, rehearsed dialogue. But when Ortiz tells press he’s a businessman, he means it: In this industry, your ability to pique the interest of audiences in your career directly influences how much money you make. Ortiz makes a lot. His greatest physical attribute is his mouth.

This is a depressing lesson in sports. If your game is faultless but you bore, you will not find lucrative contract offers piled on your doorstep. Athletes who do not perform to expectations but find themselves engaging viewers will be rewarded time and again. (And if you can somehow do both -- win at the same time your story resonates -- you will want for nothing.)

Ortiz, though roughly as articulate as a See ‘n Say, understands that emotion is what really drives athletics. Football fans do not brave incremental weather and paint their engorged stomachs with team colors because watching a ball slowly make its way down a field is that enthralling: It’s because they become consumed with the idea that “their” team’s victory can be shared by the community. It’s how most ball players can get away with being either incredible bores or incredible jerks. Hometown jerseys define them.

Fighting has some regional rallying -- poor Anderson Silva, fighting in Rich Franklin’s Cincinnati but never Brazil -- but it’s not often the athlete can depend on some kind of communal support to pay his purse. He needs to find a way to make a crowd care about his outcome. This often involves audiences either having a great deal of affection for you, or wishing your guts get spilled onto the canvas.

This was not much of a concern in the beginning. Royce Gracie, who spoke passable English and was genial but not dynamic, had the luxury of his family’s history and the tournament environment writing his story. By the time he entered for a third fight in a single evening, you knew what he was trying to do and the obstacles he had faced along the way. It was incredibly easy to have a stake in the outcome -- the promotional equivalent of instant oatmeal.

Ken Shamrock had limited exposure in major press, and the UFC had no outlet for promoting beyond the martial arts magazines, but Shamrock was still the UFC’s first star of a single-fight format. This in spite of Shamrock being a drag in the ring, even with a limited-rules structure: His “superfights” with Gracie, Oleg Taktarov and Dan Severn rank among the worst in the UFC’s history.

But Shamrock -- who wrestled for a spell and picked up on the idea of tweaking audience interests -- still thrived, his in-ring sins forgiven, and he elevated a UFC 40 bout with Ortiz (surprise) to help change the company’s ailing fortunes. People cared about the guy. Kalib Starnes, a cardboard cutout of a fighter, had an equally nauseating fight with Nate Quarry and was stoned by fans, never to be forgiven. Being provocative is an insurance policy against your contract being torn up.

Frank Shamrock has monetized his limited abilities late in his career by being antagonistic; Kimbo Slice, the star of Spike’s highest-rated taped fight, claimed not to know what Greco-Roman wrestling was. These men can and do outdraw tough, talented fighters who approach fighting with the same grim determination of a tax preparer.

All fighting can be reduced to whether or not you care about who’s getting hurt. Undercard bouts are glossed over, untelevised and slightly reported not because the fighters are any less talented but because we don’t yet know them. We can’t react to an outcome. The UFC did not begin resonating until they began offering sustained, intimate exposure to athletes via “The Ultimate Fighter.” Suddenly, Forrest Griffin, whose skills did not intrigue the UFC prior to his appearance on that series, was a superstar. It is not coincidence that some of the sport’s biggest draws spent months or years on free television.

There is little fault to be found in any of this: If popular athletes draw business and move tickets, it has a trickle-down effect, where undercard athletes can get an opportunity to piggyback on that exposure and possibly spin their own careers into something substantial. Where fans should get nervous is when celebrity begins to trump the academic nature of the sport -- to find out who the best really is. Shamrock’s fight with Ortiz bumped Chuck Liddell’s title bid, a somewhat gross invasion of that purpose; Vitor Belfort, up until recently guaranteed a Jan. 2 date with Anderson Silva, had leapfrogged over Nate Marquardt and Dan Henderson; Brock Lesnar, who excels in raising hairs, competed for the UFC title in only his third fight with the company. This is where commerce pollutes competition.

Perhaps Ortiz can contend for the title again; maybe not. But it really doesn’t matter. Ortiz is smarter than he’s given credit for. He realizes what many athletes fail to: that his pension plan involves a microphone.

For comments, e-mail jrossen@sherdog.com