Brian Ortega won\u2019t be making his scheduled move to lightweight at UFC 326.<\/p>\n
The former featherweight title challenger, who was bumping up to 155 pounds for a rematch against Renato Moicano in March, revealed that he\u2019s dealing with some nagging injuries that are going to require some time off. Ortega beat Moicano in their first meeting with a third-round guillotine choke submission back in 2017.<\/p>\n
As dejected as he was to share the news, Ortega promised he is not dealing with anything serious that would keep him sidelined for an extended period of time, but he is not healthy enough to fight Moicano in March.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, the news is coming out that no longer am I fighting March 7 in Vegas,\u201d Ortega said on Instagram. \u201cI\u2019m OK. Health is good. No surgeries, nothing crazy like that, but I do need to take a little bit, some time off to nurse these injuries that I have right now. It just sucks. It\u2019s not crazy like that where I need to have surgery, but I have to rest it and let it heal and chill and do some physical therapy. I\u2019m going to be on that mission. That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s just a little bit delayed. Nothing crazy. I\u2019m still planning on fighting twice this year. Look out.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a tumultuous few years for Ortega, with health and weight-cutting problems slowing down his career.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Ortega was scheduled to face featherweight contender Diego Lopes at UFC 303, but he wasn\u2019t able to make the 146-pound limit for a non-title fight. The matchup was expected to move forward at a catchweight, but Ortega ultimately dropped off the card on fight day, and he was replaced by Dan Ige on short notice.<\/p>\n
Most recently, Ortega suffered through another brutal weight cut that left him unable to get anywhere near the 146-pound limit for a fight scheduled against Aljamain Sterling. Subsequently, Ortega moved forward with the fight with a new 153-pound limit, but he was unable to do much in the five-round contest before ultimately losing a unanimous decision.<\/p>\n
Overall, Ortega has gone 1-4 in his past five fights.<\/p>\n
Now the 34-year-old veteran has to wait until sometime later in 2026 to book his next fight after dropping out of UFC 326.<\/p>\n
As of now, Moicano is expected to remain on the card against a new opponent, although there\u2019s no word yet on who he might be facing in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brian Ortega won\u2019t be making his scheduled move to lightweight at UFC 326. The former featherweight title challenger,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-450033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}