The only 2 chances Ortega has had to lift UFC gold and both Holloway and Volkanovski gave Brian ‘T-City’ Ortega an absolute thrashing.
We learned a few things though from both those fights:
He doesn’t quit and continuously walks forward like a zombie.
His chin is rock solid.
If he gets a hold of you, regardless of what stage the fight is at, you’d better start praying or wriggling like Volk did.
I have no doubt Ortega will make it back up to title contender again and will probably have to face Volkanovski, I’ve never seen Alex in as much trouble trying to get out of that triangle..
So what can Ortega do differently? He looked so impressive against the Korean zombie but then Volkanovski came along and made the same fight look like a mis-match..
Top comments (16)
He needs a takedown game! He's got excellent striking but his two losses came from him being outstruck and his #1 weapon is his incredible submission game. But the man just refuses to shoot takedowns unless he's really in trouble and so his biggest strength is often left pretty void until the opponent makes a mistake.
If T-City can get some solid wrestling under him then I think we'd see him really shoot up as a fighter. He's already the 3rd best in the division, but I think he has what it takes to be champ if he adds that
Let’s see how many times he shoots and succeeds this weekend. He has all the ingredients to be one of the greatest, he’s as durable as hell.
Watched and enjoyed his career, but I feel like his only chance of gold is if Alex gets bored at 145 once he gets a taster at 155
Hey @louisingro - do you watch much of Ortega?
yeah bro! Ortega is my personal favourite featherweight fighter, very close to Volk. Weather he wins or not his fights are always entertaining as hell, I mean look at his last fight with Volk, that walkout was money in itself! Also I think he poses a real threat at 155, he has a similar reach and height as Dustin and Charles, look how they got on, both of them got way closer to having a belt at 155 than they ever did at featherweight.
He's the guy that got me into MMA, my first live event was Zombie vs Ortega. I remember watching the Swanson submission and being dumbfounded as to what just happened. Favourite fighter alongside Volk and Rob Whittaker
you went too zombie vs Ortega ? bet that was a great fight to attend to! my first live event is London in a couple of weeks! I watched him fight Guida back in 2016 (from the sofa haha) and since then I was a fan, he's just such a cool guy, the fighting, the swag he got it all. Very similar taste to me man, great name drops there.
Live as in like, when it happened sorry aha. I watched it in my uni house but it was the first MMA event I'd seen where the outcome wasn't already out there and as a fan it was such a brilliant performance
I actually thought Ollie was in the UAE 😂 and he’d been to fight island 😂😂.
@louisingro You gotta document your experience here mate, those tickets went like hot cakes.
Who’s fighting? Aspinal? He’ll be sporting that new huge Yakuza back tattoo - i can’t wait to see him back in there
Relevant:
The Renaissance of the Heavyweight Division
Ollie ・ Apr 5 ・ 5 min read
same haha! i was thinking this guy must know some people! bro them tickets went so fast! I was lucky, yeah mate I'll post about my experience for sure!
aspinall
molly
paddy
craig
jai
gustafsson
many more!
Louis, check out @markb2201 ‘s profile pic. That was taken just before Masvidal’s comeback and impending renewed stardom at Masvidal v Till - apparent he was really cool and friendly. I think it was UFC in Liverpool though, or maybe it was UFC London, not sure 🤔
man I'm jealous, Ortega my favourite featherweight fighter, but Jorge my favourite fighter on the whole roster!
oh gotcha dude, yeah he looked incredible that fight.
I agree he needs a legitimate wrestling game to go with his jiu jitsu game because there is a big difference between the two. That and he needs to develop his striking a little bit more since he simply got outstruck against Max and Volk. He looked on point coming back against the Korean Zombie but he seems to struggle with the technicality of Holloway and Volkonovski’s game. But that’s just what separates them from everyone else at featherweight.
This is a good read..
Brian Ortega reveals he was going to “quit” MMA if he lost to Thiago Tavares in 2015: “I wasn’t making money, I had 75 dollars to my name”
I remember watching an early promo of Ortega at his house with all the surfboards, was really cool, reminded me of Jay Kulina’s place in Kingdom