It had been close to two years since Brian Ortega last competed in the UFC, and before he even had a chance to throw a single punch, his co-main event with Yair Rodriguez nearly ended.
As Bruce Buffer introduced him to the crowd at UFC Mexico City, Ortega jumped in the air but then landed awkwardly on his ankle. He steadied himself without falling to the ground, but there was no doubt that Ortega was hurt, which was noted several times by the broadcast team.
Despite the bizarre injury and then a near-finish delivered by Rodriguez in the opening round, Ortega stormed back and secured a third-round submission win. But he admitted that his long-awaited comeback almost came to a sudden halt before it ever began.
“Talk about things stacked against me,” Ortega said at the UFC Mexico City post-fight press conference. “Bruce [Buffer] was introducing me and then I jumped up, and when I landed, I rolled my ankle. I was like, ‘Oh shoot.’ I looked at my coach and I was like, ‘This is bad.’ He’s like, ‘Don’t you effing worry about this.’ He was just telling me get in the zone, it doesn’t matter.
“When they were introducing him, I was trying to flex my ankle, like, ‘Come on, work, don’t you dare fail me right now. We’ve got five rounds, it’s not even a regular co-main event!’ I’d be lying if I said panic didn’t set in for a bit. Then, obviously I started just off. Right off the bat, I started, I got clipped, and then I paid the price for not being in the zone and focused on what I was supposed to do. I survived it.”
It was a harrowing opening round, but Ortega actually ended in the mount on Rodriguez before the final horn sounded. He then controlled the second round with a dominant grappling game that put Rodriguez on his heels for the first time.
The third round barely started before Ortega secured another takedown and put an end to the fight by wrapping up a nasty arm-triangle choke that forced Rodriguez to tap out.
Looking back now, Ortega knew the ankle injury distracted him in the first round and could have cost him the fight, but thankfully it didn’t.
“It was hurting, and obviously when you’re paying attention to it, it’s hard to really focus on the fight,” Ortega said. “I’m like, ‘Dude, this is what happened right now. What an idiot. You roll your ankle right now in front of 22,000 people and you have a war with this tough guy in Mexico and everyone’s going for him.’ Like, come on, bro. I had to fight some demons in there.”
In the end, Ortega got the job done, and the win over Rodriguez cemented him as a top contender again in the featherweight division just one week after a new champion was crowned.
Ilia Topuria took home the 145-pound title with a stunning knockout of Alexander Volkanovski in the UFC 298 main event, and now he awaits the chance to defend that belt. UFC CEO Dana White said after the event on Saturday that he hopes to give Topuria a homecoming, with the new champ’s next fight taking place in Spain sometime in 2024.
There’s no opponent yet, although Volkanovski called for an immediate rematch given his long reign as champion before the knockout loss.
Even Ortega agreed that Volkanovski deserved recognition after such an impressive run atop the featherweight division, but if he needs some time off, then “T-City” is more than willing to offer Topuria a new challenge.
“There’s some questions out there, but obviously Volk was a great champ,” Ortega said. “For people to kick him down right now, I find it kind of disrespectful for everything that he’s done.
“Some things have to play themselves out and we’ll see. But if he decides that he does not want to fight and chill, then I’m more than happy to go to Spain.”
As far as avoiding another war like the one he had with Rodriguez, Ortega obviously hopes that the freak injury to his ankle will never happen again, but even if everything goes perfectly, he knows it’s nearly impossible to walk away unscathed at this level of the sport.
He can’t say for certain how a fight would unfold with Topuria or anybody else for that matter, but Ortega knows he’s shown his heart and resilience over and over again throughout his UFC career. His latest win is just further proof of that.
“I mean, look at the situation where I’m at,” Ortega said. “There’s no easy fights, no easy wins here. Had I been [unranked] at ‘45 or something, then it would probably be different. But since 2017, it’s been nothing but main events, co-main events, five-round fights. I’ve not had an easy fight my entire career if you pay attention to it.
“They threw me to the best of the best. I fought Max [Holloway] when he was Max. I fought Volk when he was Volk. I fought you name it. That’s just who I am. They give me a name, I say yes. I don’t do the picking, can you give me another one? I say, ‘Who did they say?’ They said this person. I say, ‘Cool, let’s do it.’”
