{"id":619625,"date":"2026-04-21T21:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/619625\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T21:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:20:09","slug":"brian-ortega-opens-up-on-toxic-relationship-with-ufc-star-tracy-cortez-i-f-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/619625\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Ortega opens up on toxic relationship with UFC star Tracy Cortez: ‘I f***** up!’"},"content":{"rendered":"

UFC star Brian Ortega\u2019s past romantic relationship with flyweight Tracy Cortez was rockier than fans, pundits, and fighters were led to believe.<\/p>\n

During the UFC\u2019s illustrious history, there have been a few \u2018power couples\u2019 on the roster, including some coach\/fighter relationships. Former UFC title challengers Thiago Santos and Yana Kunitskaya<\/a>, along with Amanda and Nina Nunes, are just a few examples of couples you don\u2019t want to mess with.<\/p>\n

Former UFC featherweight title challenger Brian Ortega and women\u2019s flyweight star Tracy Cortez were once an item, before an abrupt, and rumored, messy breakup. But the two have kept a relatively cordial relationship over the past year despite their public split.<\/p>\n

According to Ortega, his current cordiality with Cortez took a long time to develop, after what he described as a toxic romantic pairing.<\/p>\n

Brian Ortega\u2019s Mom warned him about \u2018never being at peace\u2019 with Tracy Cortez<\/p>\n

In a recent appearance on Dominick Cruz\u2019s Love & War<\/a> podcast, Ortega opened up on his highly-publicized relationship with Cortez at the height of their UFC stardom.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was rough, and not to sound bad, but I think she got lucky at the right time in my life,\u201d Ortega said of Cortez.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started listening to myself\u2026and when I was listening to certain teachings, we just kind of grew apart. I met [Tracy] and I thought we could start from scratch, \u2018Power Couple\u2019 this and that, and then shortly into that, I was like \u2018D***, I f***** up\u2019. But because I already left the kids and the family [before], everyone was going to laugh at me, so it was the ego again. So I put up with all the craziness even though I knew four months in [it wasn\u2019t going to work].<\/p>\n

\u201cI was never at peace,\u201d Ortega continued. \u201cMy mother and my family were like \u2018We don\u2019t want a part of you, we\u2019re disappointed in you\u2019. I thought they were just mad that I left, but then she said, \u2018The worst thing that can happen to a Mom is seeing her son being with someone like that\u2026who that girl is, can she change? I hope she does. But who she is now, you\u2019ll never be at peace\u2019. Training camps were horrible. The Volkanovski fight? Horrible. Arguing and just dumb nonsense at 3 or 4 in the morning\u2026now guys like Alex Pereira are starting to realize that [she\u2019s crazy].\u201d<\/p>\n

Ortega is referring to Cortez\u2019s brief, albeit public, relationship with former UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira. Just days after Cortez shared photos of Pereira and her<\/a> celebrating New Year\u2019s Eve together, the two opted to break up, albeit in a cordial fashion.<\/p>\n

Cortez and Ortega are both looking to get back on track in their UFC careers after recent setbacks. Ortega hasn\u2019t fought since a loss to Aljamain Sterling at UFC Shanghai, while Cortez hasn\u2019t competed since a UFC 322 loss to Erin Blanchfield.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your reaction to Brian Ortega\u2019s comments about Tracy Cortez? Let us know in the comments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC star Brian Ortega\u2019s past romantic relationship with flyweight Tracy Cortez was rockier than fans, pundits, and fighters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[50460,49,48,641,638,82,57508,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-619625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-brian-ortega","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tracy-cortez","15":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}