UFC featherweight Max Holloway experienced concussion-like symptoms shortly before his fight vs. Brian Ortega, and was medically withdrawn from the fight at UFC 226. The UFC tried to put together an alternate fight for Ortega, perhaps for an interim title. However, as ‘T-City’ detailed during an appearance on Brendan Schaub’s Below The Belt podcast, he told Dana White, “no.”
It’s not difficult to understand why. Ortega got into the #1 contender spot by defeating Frankie Edgar, who could have waited for a title shot, but took Ortega instead, and now has what will likely be a long grind back.
While Ortega had his management team with him, it likely did not help matters that main eventer Daniel Cormier appeared to momentarily collapse on stage, in what ended up being a simple stumble, but looked concerning at the time.
[White] was pretty pissed off. He was just in a bad mood, said Ortega, as transcribed by Simon Samano for MMAjunkie. Fight fell through, I didn’t realize DC just fell on the stage. And then he walks in this meeting, and I’m over here telling him, ‘Hey, man, I’m not going to fight.’ Like, I’m holding my ground. I said, ‘Listen, with all due respect, I stepped in and fought Tavares on two weeks’ notice, I stepped in and fought Frankie on three weeks’ notice, and I stepped in to try to fight Khabib on six days’ notice.’ I go, ‘It’s not a scared issue. It’s not that I’m not down for the company.’ I go, ‘Now it’s just, I finished everyone you told me to. Every single person you put in front of me, I took their heads out, like Conor says, and I put them on your f***ing doorstep.’ I go, ‘And that earned me a title shot. Now that I’m here, why go anywhere else besides forward?’
He put on his promoter hat. He’s like, ‘Listen, man, just fight. Blah, blah, blah, we’ll work something out.’ And then I was like, ‘We don’t need to work anything out. I want Max Holloway, or I want the belt.’ He says, ‘I’m going to see if we can do an interim fight.’ I was like, ‘I’m not fighting for a fake belt. It looks cool, but it’s not the real belt, doesn’t get you the real – there’s no real money involved with that one, nothing that really goes on in terms of being the champion. You just get something that says I’m in first place. It just says I’m next in line for the belt.’ Which is like, I’m already here, right? You just want to put something shiny around my waist to make me feel better. I was like, ‘No, I’m not going to do it.’
Ortega hoped to receive some compensation for his training time and expense, media duties in English, and media duties in Spanish.
I’m like, ‘I’ve been showing you I’m a company man,’ said Ortega. ‘I’m down to promote the hell out of this fight. I’m taking extra hours while I’m hungry, starving to keep doing media.’ I was like, ‘And I’ve been cutting weight, did the open workouts, ready for media. I showed up. Don’t you think that’s worth something?’ That’s worth something even if I didn’t take the fight. Still, I go, ‘I did my end of the deal.’ And then they came back and it was like, ‘Well, our deal is to find you a fight, and we found you a fight, and you turned it down.’ I was like, ‘Not really.’ … He goes, ‘Well, I did my job. You didn’t do yours. Your job is to show up and fight.’
So Brian Ortega got nothing. Hopefully Max Holloway’s medical issues are not serious. And hopefully Ortega gets the fight he has earned.
