Brian
Ortega got to see Alexander
Volkanovski at the top of his game.
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He isn’t so sure that was the case when Volkanovski relinquished
the title to Ilia
Topuria at UFC 298 this past weekend.
Ortega dropped a five-round verdict to Volkanovski in their
featherweight title tilt at UFC 266 in September 2021. While Ortega
absorbed more than 200 significant strikes in that bout, he also
placed Volkanovski in serious peril with with submission attempts
in the third and fourth frames. Neither was successful, which
allowed Volkanovski to take a clear victory on the scorecards.
Volkanovski’s reign ended at UFC 298, where after winning the first
round on all three scorecards, “The Great” succumbed to a right
hook from Topuria 3:32 into Round 2 to signal a new era at 145
pounds.
“Props to Ilia. He won. That was a very devastating KO he got,”
Ortega said at media day ahead of UFC Mexico City. “For Volk, I’m
trying to look at it from both perspectives. Topuria’s game plan
was really good, staying calm, moving back, throwing power
punches.
“To me, it didn’t seem like it was the same Volk. Seeing him and
being in front of him it was like, ‘Man you’re moving different.’
But obviously, he adjusts for every opponent for he has. So who
knows? But I am curious to see what happens in the featherweight
division.”
For Ortega, that means returning to action for the first time since
a shoulder injury prematurely ended his first meeting with Yair
Rodriguez 4:11 into Round 1 of their fight at UFC on ABC 3 on
July 16, 2022. Ortega and Rodriguez will square off again in a
five-round co-main event at
UFC Fight Night 237 on Saturday at Mexico City Arena.
“My perspective on it is it’s just a continuation of that fight,”
Ortega said.
“…It was interesting. I was out for a while. Finally when the
doctors cleared me from everything , I was able to talk to my
manager … talked to the team. Everyone said we were ready. We got
into negotiations and his name popped up. I said, ‘Here we
go.’”
Ortega has been out of the public eye for the majority of the time
since suffering that injury. One of the prevailing themes of his
comeback on social media has been #rebirth. The featherweight
contender explained that concept in-depth during his media
session.
“The rebirth is a nature process that the eagle goes through. It’s
something that felt very close to heart for me. It’s some difficult
changes that I had to make in my personal life to be able to really
live the rest of my life the right way,” Ortega said. “For those
who don’t know, the eagle lives for 70 years. At the 40-year mark,
the eagle loses the sharpness of its beak, the feathers aren’t as
good and its talons are weak. So it has a choice: The choice is to
die, keep doing what you’re doing, living the way you are. Or
isolate yourself way up in the mountains, smash your beak against a
rock til it breaks, wait til it grows back, pluck your talons and
feathers out and stay in isolation until everything grows back. And
then when that process is done, the eagle can live the next 30
years of its life. That process in nature is called the rebirth for
the eagle.
“That’s something similar that I went through in my personal life,
where I had to sit in isolation and face myself in a way that I
never had before. I had to just plug away and be alone for a long
time. Now I’m here.”
Ortega didn’t get into specifics about what led to this rebirthing
process, but he did admit that it was “painful.”
“I feel like a lot of us we all have things about ourselves that we
either hide or we distract,” he said. “We either run from it or we
numb ourselves with it. You distract yourself by doing something a
lot, or you drink or you smoke. Whatever it is, you distract
yourself and you kind of go into this place where you don’t really
address these issues that bother you, although you know they’re
there. Later on they bite you in the ass. They say you reap what
you sow. I definitely ate every bitter freaking fruit that I made
my whole life.”
Ortega is also playing it close to the vest when it comes to his
plans for his fighting career beyond Saturday night.
“In terms of fighting, I’d like to try to be more present,” he
said. “Do I have plans? Of course. Do I reveal them? No. I take
things one step at a time. And then we move on to the next move.
It’s something that I learned recently and it’s something that I’m
adhering to.”