As if we needed more evidence that Brian Ortega is injury jinxed, his coach Rener Gracie has now released a video showing the moment the featherweight star suffered a bad cut above his right eye just three weeks out from his rematch with Yair Rodriguez at UFC Fight Night 237.
“Three weeks before the fight, Brian caught a nasty head butt while training @GracieUniversityHQ,” Gracie wrote on Instagram.
“Slide 2. It was so deep that he had to get 4 stitches on the inside and 10 on the surface.
“Slide 3. Being so close to the fight we knew that one light punch in that region would have busted it right open. It was our biggest concern (until he rolled his ankle during Round 0 ).
“The day after the stitches went in, when I texted him asking if he still wanted to fight, he and @mikesaffaie sent me a video response. Slide 4.”
Ortega had been returning to action after taking over a year-and-a-half off due to the freak shoulder dislocation and torn rotator cuff he suffered during the first round of his first fight with Yair Rodriguez back in 2022.
Of course, since it was ‘T-City’ his recovery didn’t go smoothly, having to undergo four surgeries during his time out, with the icing on the cake being the fact that he then rolled his ankle during his pre-fight introduction prior to rematching Rodriguez this past weekend.
Despite the surgeries, the freshly injured ankle, the barely healed cut and the fact that he got dropped in the first round by Rodriguez, Ortega somehow still managed to battle his way back into the fight and emerged with a third round submission wins to put himself firmly back in the title picture at 145lbs.
