Las Vegas – UFC featherweight Brian Ortega seemed much more like himself on Wednesday during Noche UFC fight week as he prepares to face Diego Lopes on Saturday night.
Ortega (16-3) withdrew from his fight with Lopes on fight night at UFC 303. During fight week he seemed not quite himself and ended up falling ill and unable to fight even though he made weight.
“I’m a lot better. I’m sorry about that for all you guys. I was on autopilot,” Ortega told reporters including Cageside Press at media day.
“That was it. The only way I can explain it. Everything felt just autopilot.”
The fight at UFC 303 was a short-notice fight as the promotion scrambled to put together a worthy PPV card after Conor McGregor withdrew from the event. This time around Ortega got a full camp and plenty of time to prepare for Lopes.
“Just going through the motions and getting a fight week and changing the scenery where I was staying from last time to this time. Kind of comparing both this one just feels way different. Just way different,” he said.
Once he got the call to rebook the fight it was on.
“1000%. I already knew that this fight was it. Based on the fact of me not being able to make the fight, him winning versus (Dan) Ige, was like a big question like well if he doesn’t do this tonight then there’s no future for me as in terms of fighting him,” Ortega said.
“That means it’s done. Say he won we’re like ok the future’s still there and guaranteed that behind closed doors they were like, ‘hey bro you do all these favors for us we got your back.’ And that’s when they pushed for me to fight him, but I wasn’t reluctant at all.”
Ortega sees this as a fire lit under him in hopes of actually getting to the fight this time around and finding out who is better.
“I said actually I have a fire lit underneath me now because of what happened before. I got to do the whole weigh-ins, I got to go face-off, and we went through the motions and we started the story, and we never finished it,” he said.
“Saturday we finish it finally.”
The plan, prior to fighting Lopes at UFC 303, was to move up to lightweight and look for opportunities in that division. Ortega said he plans to make good on that plan.
“1000%. You have (Ilia) Topuria and Max (Holloway) fighting in October then after that you have whatever date they decide on next year to fight…so it’s like a line to fight for the belt. Depending on how this fight goes this weekend is going to determine whether the fans believe that I deserve another shot or not,” said Ortega.
“Either or my goal is to stay busy and if there’s nothing for me in the featherweight division then I’ll move up.”
Watch the entire media day scrum with Brian Ortega above. He takes on Diego Lopes at Noche UFC on Saturday night.
