‘Badass fights everyone will like’

Brian Ortega doesn’t see a ton of upside in his fight against Diego Lopes, at least likely not enough to get him another UFC title shot.

Ortega (16-3 MMA, 8-3 UFC), a two-time UFC title challenger at featherweight, returns Saturday on the main card of UFC 306 at Sphere in Las Vegas. He takes on Lopes (25-6 MMA, 4-1 UFC), a rising star in the division who’s become one of the hottest names in the sport. “T-City” thinks a win for Lopes will likely get him a crack at the belt, but he’s not so confident the same is in play if he wins.

“We’ll see … we’ll see,” Ortega told MMA Junkie in Spanish when asked if he expects a title shot win a win on Saturday. “The UFC has its own opinions on his ranking, and I think this fight has more of an upside for him than for me.

“If he beats me, they’ll say he’s the next big thing and will be going for the title and all that. I’ve obviously fought for the title twice already, and I wasn’t able to win, so that changes things with the UFC.”

So why did Ortega take the fight to begin with? The two were scheduled to meet on short notice at UFC 303 in June, but hours away from the event, Ortega was forced to pull out due to illness. Lopes ended up fighting and defeating Dan Ige on hour’s notice.

It was a big tease for the MMA world, and once Ortega saw the hype around the fight along with the disappointment of it falling through, he bought more into the idea.

“If you look at it like a business, not, ‘Oh I just fight against anyone,’ it doesn’t make sense for your career,” Ortega said. “You should be fighting upwards, not downwards. This fight wasn’t in my mind, but we saw what happened: Two fighters got injured, we stepped in, and I couldn’t fight. Now, after that, the talk started, and I even began telling myself, ‘You know what, this is not that bad of an idea now that all of this happened.’ I’ve been seeing the comments and this is a very popular fight everyone wants to see.

“At the end of the day, this might not be what’s best for business, but this is why I got into the sport – to have badass fights that everyone will like. Who doesn’t want to fight without the talk and all the bullsh*t? We’re just fighting, and that’s it.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 306.