Brian Ortega talks about the changes he’s made since his championship fight in 2018.
Nearly two years ago, the featherweight fought then champion Max Holloway for the 145-pound belt and Ortega ended up suffering the first loss of his career. The 29-year-old will step back into the ring next month against Chan Sung Jung and Ortega spoke with MMA Junkie about his training for the upcoming bout.
Ortega revealed during the interview that he’s transitioned over to Huntington Beach Ultimate Training Center and explains the process of his new regime:
“It’s been smooth just because the way I learn is exactly perfect to their teachings,” Ortega said. “They teach very slow, methodical, step-by-step details and breakdown, and me being an instructor under Rener, I really had to study and there’s a certain way I understand information and their abilities to simulate that and teach to that style was great.
“Like Jason Park teaches amazing, Paul Herrera teaches good, all the people that I have on my team they’re good at breaking it down and basically explaining the what, how’s, why’s of the techniques and letting me use it during battle or sparring and test it out.”
To Ortega, losing to Holloway actually relieved a huge amount of pressure that he had coming in. The featherweight had six UFC wins straight (and 14 overall) and with that success, the weight of the world was on his shoulders:
“It was a lot of pressure,” Ortega said. “People expect you to do things. When you’re expected to do things and perform and finish everyone and everything – people don’t understand because I did it so smoothly and it was working with great success, but the pressure was there. I have a great poker face, but don’t get twisted, I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. I had people I carried on my back all the way to the top and it was a lot of weight on me so for that to be finally done with, to finally be able to go back in there and know that it’s OK to lose.
Check out the full interview where Ortega goes into more detail about his mindset following his loss to Max Holloway. As previously stated, the featherweight fighter will take on Chan Sung Jung on October 18, 2020.