Tito has always been pretty smart about his career. I'm not saying that he picked and chose his fights, but he certainly tried to make interesting storylines against fighters that were clearly beatable (eg. Shamrock, Bonnar).
Here is how I percieve Tito's career:
Tito enters UFC in the early days as brash young kid and one of the UFC's first great self - promoters and stars. Due to an evolving sport and a lack of great wrestlers, his decent community college wrestling is very successful and he is a true bad ass champ.
But, being the self - promoter that he is and always trying to be smart about his career, he recognized when the sport evolved past him. When Chuck Liddell was around, it was clear he was in trouble. Instead of facing Chuck head on, Tito instead tried to re - vamp a tired old story line about his grudge with Ken Shamrock and it worked. The next title fight he got was a defense against Ken Shamrock when everyone knew it should be against Liddell. Then he bowed out due to injury. I'm not saying he wasn't injured, but it certainly helped postpone a fight with Liddell.
Then Liddell get's beat by a post 40 Randy Couture. A guy that most people at that time thought his career was over (in retrospect we understand differently) and then Tito Suddenly re - emerges ready to defend his title, not against Liddell, but against the old - man Randy. But he is still not prepared for that and he loses.
Now there is no dodging a Fight with Liddell which he loses. Most people at this point have accepted that the sport had evolved past Tito and anticipated a swan song fight or two. He beat up an extremely green Patrick Cote (who actually managed to drop him in the first round), and eeked out a controversial split decision over Vitor, and then did what most people assumed was a quiet exit from competing. He left the UFC and did some wrestling stuff and promoting, but stopped fighting. So what brought him back to the UFC, a fight with Forrest Griffin.
Now in hindsight we recognize that as a legit fight. But back then many fans and professionals felt that the cast of the first TUF were a bunch of schmucks in for a world of hurt. I think Tito thought this was the perfect opportunity to come back and beat a name (the first TUF winner) who was going to be easily outclassed by an experiened fighter. What he got was an extremely tough fight, but again managed to eek out a split decision. So now what? Rematches with Randy, Chuck, Vitor? No once again he rehashes an old rivalry with the now totally irrelavant Ken Shamrock who was 4 - 6 in his last 10 leading up to this fight! And they managed to stretch it out into two fights.
After the second fight we saw that Tito and Ken hugged and thanked each other for making each other a lot of money. Which I think was Tito's true plan all along, and a fine one at that. I have nothing against it. But now there was no old rivalries to re - hash and Tito would end up going 0 - 4 - 1 in his next five. Then he impressed everyone with a flash KO of Bader. But before anyone can mistake it for anything other than a flash KO he would go 0 - 3 in his next 3 fights.
No problem. Great career right. He can respectably retire. He obviously can't compete anymore...but then he takes a fight against a middle weight in Schlemenko? Why? Because it is one of the biggest names outside the UFC and it is the most winnable fight he can take. Then with Bonnar he creates a fake rivalry and gets another decent pay check.
Tito's entire career since his loss to Randy Couture has been simply trying to find a way to keep his name out there by getting the most winnable fights against as notable a fighter as he can. And damn if he hasn't done pretty well at it. His name really should have disappeared years ago, but the guy knows how to self - promote.
