Brian Ortega threw stupidity to curb (again) ahead of Sphere

LAS VEGAS – Brian Ortega admits he hasn’t been perfect.

Sometimes, the shortcomings have been outside his control – like when his body shut down prior to UFC 303 in June leading to a fight day cancellation.

Ortega (16-3 MMA, 8-3 UFC) admits he wasn’t himself during the lead-up and apologized for his behavior. He recounted coming to terms with the sequence of events while watching his scheduled opponent Diego Lopes (25-6 MMA, 4-1 UFC) beat last-minute replacement Dan Ige.

“I was laying in bed and watched his fight and was like, ‘Damn. That should’ve been me.’ But then I also thought, like, ‘Well, you know, come on, bro. If it had been you that night, you probably wouldn’t have won the way you were feeling. Let’s just be honest.’ It was a bittersweet moment knowing that I was there, almost made the weight, we went through what we went through and I didn’t really want to pull out. You have to make a choice. We made peace with it. That was it. But I had those feelings of, we could’ve got this done with and moved on to the next.”

“… I felt bad. It’s like, bro. Look at everything we went through in two weeks and I’m the one that pulls out. I was hard on myself for it, even given the circumstances of being sick. But then to see him that he’s actually got a fight, I’m like, ‘Let’s go. Cool. You still get to make your money. You get to earn your stuff.’ The only question mark was, ‘What if he loses tonight?’ That means the story ends here because that’s it.”

But Lopes didn’t lose. He won a decision, and now the two fighters are aligned again, this time for Saturday at UFC 306 at Sphere.

“This one feels way different – way different,” Ortega said.

Fight fans have seen Ortega not only mature as a fighter, but as a person during the span of decade-long UFC tenure. Fighting pulled Ortega out of a troubled lifestyle. While personal advancement hasn’t been linear, Ortega has indicated he’s advanced in the proper direction.

“The new version of myself is someone who is actually taking his job seriously,” Ortega said. “… After the Max loss, that was the first time we decided to take it serious. Then, I won (against) ‘Zombie’ and I kind of decided just to be stupid again. It’s something that’s hard to shake out there, my lifestyle. After that, after failing recently and hitting rock bottom, that’s when I decided to say, ‘You know what, bro? Stop self-sabotaging yourself because you’re afraid of what you can become.’ I was more happy to be part of the party. I wasn’t supposed to be here. That was always my mentality.

“We weren’t even supposed to be getting these checks. We were probably supposed to be in jail or doing something else. The fact that we’re here is just go for the ride. But now it’s different. Now, I take everything seriously. I just eat and breathe this. Even off-season, I’m training twice a day and I’m coaching some of these guys through what I’m learning as well. We’re just moving, man – nonstop.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 306.