Brian Ortega: ‘I Train to Beat Myself’
There are two philosophies when it comes to preparing for an opponent. Some fighters like to study as much video of their opponent as possible, looking for tendencies and holes in their game to exploit. Other fighters focus on their own skill set and work to improve their overall game without spending much time studying their opponents.
Featherweight title challenger Brian Ortega takes the latter approach.
“I never really study much. Never have I really studied an opponent in terms of really trying to sit down and break it down and study someone. I study myself and I train to beat myself and get better," said Ortega during a recent appearance on the UFC Unfiltered podcast.
"I go, you know what, this was missing last time; you missed this; you should have done this better. Every fight allows me to look at more video of myself and see how I do under pressure, see how I react when I get hit, if I get emotional or not. You learn a lot of things by watching your own tape, and I go and I fix that and I come back and try to give people a better result, a better Brian Ortega every single time they see me step in there. And it’s been working," added the undefeated Ortega.
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Ortega faces featherweight champion Max Holloway in the UFC 231 main event on Saturday and is treating the fight like any other fight that he's had.
“For him, I treat it the same way. We get ready. We train hard. We see some of the film just to know what he’s about and that’s it," he said.
Ortega was scheduled to face Holloway for the UFC Featherweight Championship on July 7 at UFC 226. However on July 4, Holloway was pulled from the fight due to "concussion like symptoms." The two will finally meet on Saturday at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
