Brian
Ortega had a larger goal in mind while accepting his upcoming
fight against Diego
Lopes.
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A high caliber featherweight matchup between Ortega and Lopes is
set to co-headline UFC 303
on Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. While one might
expect Ortega to have been lured by a huge paycheck, “T-City”
claims his fight purse for UFC 303 is not much higher than his
average UFC salary. Ortega revealed that he had another reason for
accepting the Lopes fight.
Ortega, who has spoken up about mental health on several past
occasions, attended a camp at his church directed towards improving
men’s mental health. After Ortega enjoyed the camp with his kids,
the pastor told him they needed to raise $100,000 to keep things
running. And the Lopes fight offer came at the right time for the
former UFC featherweight title contender.
“Obviously, they changed up the pay a little bit but it’s not more
than you think,” Ortega told Shakiel Mahjouri. “I’ve already been
making money like that… I did this man camp where I saw a lot of
men change their lives… All these men talking [about] going through
pain and what’s going on, what’s bothering them, we had a whole man
camp about that. Which was 160-something people. We all did it and
I brought my kids with me. We had fun. It was just life changing,
man. And then the pastor told me, pastor Jeremy, he was like, ‘Hey
dude, just so you know, my goal is to make this better but we need
to raise $100,000.
“And for some reason that stuck in my head. And I was like, ‘Dude I
gotta make it my mission to save all these men or to help these men
get saved’… So, God called me to do this fight and after the fight
help these men out.”
Ortega is coming off a submission win in a rematch against Yair
Rodriguez at UFC Mexcio City this past February. The win saw
him rebound from a two-fight slump, which included a hard-fought
title loss against Alexander
Volkanovski followed by an unfortunate injury-shortened defeat
against Rodriguez.