Brian Ortega and UFC Featherweight Champion Max Holloway were supposed to meet for the gold at UFC 226, but Holloway had a serious health scare and the bout was called off.
The featherweight contender was initially not paid for all he had done leading up to the fight, but now says that UFC President Dana White and the UFC have now compensated the #1 ranked 145 pounder.
“I’m feeling a lot better now,” Ortega said on Below The Belt. “The heartbreak was a little bit real at first, but then once I started to realize the bigger picture and everything – and I had to put my ego aside and put my thinking cap on in terms of businesswise – we made the right decision. I talked to Dana just the other day, and everything is good between me and him. He compensated me – we reached an agreement.”
Ortega doesn’t know yet when the potential title fight will come his way, as Holloway is still undergoing tests for the health scare the canned everything in the first place.
Now that everything between the UFC and Ortega has been cleared up, one thing that Ortega is going to do is pray for the UFC Featherweight Champion.
“The goal was for me to go for a title, not to fight a guy who lost to the last three guys that I finished, so it just didn’t make sense to fight for anything else than a belt,” Ortega said. “I put myself in that position by finishing everyone who’s been in front of me, and I’m just going to wait for that and pray for Max because now they’re saying that it’s a possible light stroke, and that’s not a joke. I’ve got prayers on for Max, and he’s ‘Blessed,’ so he’ll come back. It doesn’t matter if you call me on one day, two days, that’s never been the issue. But the belt is what I want, and I’m going to wait for it and pray that Max gets better so we can give the fight fans the fight that you guys want to see because I know we missed out for you guys at UFC 226, but we’ll make up for it.”
Holloway has now pulled out of three bouts this year, with all of those cancellations being title fights.
