Brian Ortega certainly knows how to get fans out of their seats. The jiu jitsu specialist successfully made weight for his main event bout against Yair Rodriguez.
Ortega is looking to prove himself in order to secure another shot against Alex Volkanovski. Out of all of Volkanovski’s opponents, Ortega put him in the biggest jeopardy having applied a tight submission which Volkanovski barely wriggled out of to the surprise of everyone who knows anything about jiu jitsu.
Meanwhile Yair Rodriguez has been ranked at #3 and is eagerly awaiting his chance to challenge Volkanovski.
Rodríguez told MMA Underground
“There’s a lot of things that need to happen in order for me to get to the title shot. Volkanovski will probably make some decisions that can affect it, too, so there’s nothing in my hands right now. What’s in my hands right now is … making it to the fight Saturday, and that’s what I can do.”
“I would love that personally because I feel like from what the world’s seeing is he’s won the belt, he’s defended the belt, and the one person that gave him the hardest time was me,” Ortega said in an interview with Inside Fighting. “(I) put him in the most danger he’s ever been in his career. …
“I just put him in the most danger and people noticed that, people saw. I’m just a deadly opponent for him. Obviously I’m always gonna train to win, to fight this guy and beat this guy. I believe I have the tools and capabilities to do so if I play my cards right. So it’s all about seeing how I can play my cards right and going in there and finishing this man.”
As for Yair, Ortega credits him with being unorthodox.
“Unorthodox. Very wild. Unpredictable. And he doesn’t back out, you know? He’s a fighter,” Ortega said. “Yeah, he don’t back out. That (dude’s) game.”