Brian Ortega has a come-to-lightweight moment ahead of his most recent fight.
It’s been 10 months since Ortega was last seen in the octagon losing a decision to Aljamain Sterling at UFC Shanghai. Originally scheduled to take place at featherweight, the bout was bumped up to a 153-pound catchweight limit after Ortega suffered a scare before the fight. During his weight cut, Ortega ended up passing out and waking up in an emergency room.
That was a clear sign Ortega’s featherweight days might be numbered.
“I left the hospital, straight to weigh-ins and then that was it,” Ortega said on the JAXXON podcast. “I’ve had the [feeling] where you feel like you’re about to die and you kind of pass out even for a little bit during the weight cut and then you wake up and you’re like, I’m just depleted.
“This one was—I try not to say it was a scare, but this one scared me a little bit.”
Ortega didn’t immediately make the decision to change weight classes. His first thought was that he was going to fight Sterling no matter what, even with Sterling’s team already having a replacement opponent lined up. He credited Sterling with caring about his well-being as much as keeping their matchup intact.
Had Ortega’s weigh-in mishap happed in the United States, he wonders if that would even have been an option.
“There’s guys who pass out right before for like a second and the fight gets cancelled,” Ortega said. “I just got lucky it was China. Had that happened here, they would have pulled me out of the fight.”
Though Ortega isn’t ruling out a return to featherweight should he managed to straighten out his discipline and diet, the plan is for his next UFC fight to be at 155 pounds. “T-City” was actually scheduled to fight Renato Moicano in a lightweight bout at UFC 326 this past March, but was forced to withdraw due to injury.
The most important thing for Ortega now is that he wants to get back to his camps being focused on training and improvement, not managing the scale.
“Right now we’re moving up to lightweight after fighting at ‘45 since I was 15 years old,” Ortega said. “Decided that we went from no cutting to slight cutting to crazy big cuts and now that’s it, we’re going to ‘55. Make it an easier cut, make camp more camp than a freaking diet, nutrition camp. It’s like a weight-loss camp. Just kind of focus in and train with you guys and get all the big boys that can push me around and give me some good intel.”
Ortega doesn’t have a name in mind for his return fight, but if the opportunity comes up to fight Moicano again—Ortega defeated Moicano via third-round submission in 2017 featherweight encounter—he’s open to a re-booking.
“We had talks about fighting Renato Moicano and I had some injuries, minor injuries that just prevented me from fighting him on the Holloway vs. Oliveira card,” Ortega said. “So now we’re going to see if their side and my side wants to re-do that fight. If we can lock that in, we will.”
