Brian Ortega is looking forward to finishing his story with Diego Lopes.
This Saturday, Ortega takes on Lopes in the featured main card fight of UFC 306. The two were originally supposed to face off in a featherweight bout at UFC 303 in June, however, Ortega struggled with his weight cut and the bout was changed to a lightweight contest the day before the event. Then, on the day of the event, Ortega was forced out of the event due to illness and instead, Lopes faced Dan Ige on just a few hours’ notice before winning a unanimous decision.
On Wednesday, Ortega spoke with reporters at UFC 306 media day, where he recounted how he felt that night watching Lopes compete.
“I was staying in the hotel room and we [watched the fights on TV],” Ortega explained. “I was laying in bed and I saw his fight and I was like, ‘Damn, that should have been me.’ But I also thought, ‘Well, come on, bro. Had that been you that night, you probably wouldn’t have won, the way you were feeling.’ Let’s just be honest. But it was a bittersweet moment, knowing I was there, almost made the weight, and we went through what we went through.
“I didn’t really want to pull out, but you have to make a choice. We made peace with it and that was it. But yeah, I had those feelings that we could have got this done with and moved on to the next.”
Ortega now has the chance to do just that this weekend. Following his win over Ige, Lopes called for this fight to be rebooked and for his part, “T-City” was all for it.
“I wasn’t reluctant at all,” Ortega said. “I have a fire lit underneath me because of what happened before. I got to do the whole weigh-ins, got to face off — we went through the motions and we started the story but we never finished it. Saturday we finish it finally. I don’t want to leave anyone with any doubt or anything of how this story ends.”
But while this story may end on Saturday, the journey will continue for Ortega. Before the Lopes fight was originally booked, Ortega had discussed moving up to lightweight and given the lay of the land at 145 pounds right now, the former two-time featherweight title challenger says that still may be the next chapter for him after Saturday.
“100 percent,” Ortega said when asked if he was still contemplating a move up to 155 pounds. “Because you’ve got [Ilia] Topuria and Max [Holloway] fighting in October. Then after that you’ve got whatever date they decide next year to fight [Alexander Volkanovski], so it’s like a line to fight for the belt.
“Depending how this fight goes this weekend, it’s going to determine whether the fans believe that I deserve another shot or not. But either/or, my goal is to stay busy and if there’s nothing for me in the featherweight division, then I’ll move up.”
UFC 306 takes place this Saturday at Sphere in Las Vegas with the bantamweight title fight between Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvili headlining the event.
