Brian Ortega says his next UFC appearance will come at lightweight after a frightening weight cut and hospital visit ahead of his recent bout with Aljamain Sterling.
Ortega dropped a decision to Sterling at UFC Shanghai in a fight that was shifted to a 153-pound catchweight. During that cut, he passed out and woke up in an emergency room before ultimately still making it to the scale. “I left the hospital, straight to weigh-ins and then that was it,” Ortega said.
“I’ve had the [feeling] where you feel like you’re about to die and you kind of pass out even for a little bit during the weight cut and then you wake up and you’re like, I’m just depleted,” he added. “This one was—I try not to say it was a scare, but this one scared me a little bit.”
Ortega believes the incident could have scrapped the fight under different circumstances. “There’s guys who pass out right before for like a second and the fight gets cancelled,” he said. “I just got lucky it was China. Had that happened here, they would have pulled me out of the fight.”
“Right now we’re moving up to lightweight after fighting at ‘45 since I was 15 years old,” Ortega said. “Decided that we went from no cutting to slight cutting to crazy big cuts and now that’s it, we’re going to ‘55. Make it an easier cut, make camp more camp than a freaking diet, nutrition camp.”
Ortega was previously booked to face Renato Moicano at lightweight at UFC 326 but withdrew due to injury. “We had talks about fighting Renato Moicano and I had some injuries, minor injuries that just prevented me from fighting him on the Holloway vs. Oliveira card,” Ortega said. “So now we’re going to see if their side and my side wants to re-do that fight. If we can lock that in, we will.”
