Who Did It Worse: Ortega Or McGregor?

Photo by Woohae Cho/Zuffa LLC

While top Featherweight contender Brian Ortega wasn’t on the docket to fight last Sat. (March 7, 2020) at the UFC 248 pay-per-view (PPV) event in Las Vegas, Nevada, he apparently was itching to get in on the combat action inside T-Mobile Arena.

According to Korean rapperJay Park — who serves as a translator for Chan Sung Jung — Ortega smacked him in the face during the event, leading to a small scuffle and “T-City” being escorted out of the arena.

If you can believe it, in the era of everyone being glued to their smartphones and cameras, there is zero video evidence of the actual alleged smack. But during a recent interview with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, Park explained how the “attack” all went down.

“I was just chilling. I was jet lagged, spacing out. Then when ‘Zombie’ went to the bathroom, I see someone pull up and he was like, ‘Hey dog, are you Jay Park?’ And it kind of caught me by surprise,” he explained.

“And I was like, ‘Yeah.’ So, as I stood up, then he smacked me. So I’m standing up and he smacks me. It was very narrow, and there were chairs behind me and so I fell back. I got up and I pushed him. There was a like a little scuffle or whatever, and the people broke it up.”

Prior to this incident, Park and Ortega had a small exchange on social media after “T-City” didn’t take too kindly to some of Jay’s translation in the lead-up to their bout for UFC Busan last December, which is where the tension seems to have originated.

But according to Park, if Ortega is getting mad at a mere translation, he needs to “get some thicker skin” and is adamant everything he ever translated from “Korean Zombie” were the fighter’s actual statements, and not his own.

While Park says the strike didn’t hurt him too bad, he admits his jaw is a bit sore a few days later. But above all else, he is more disappointed at Ortega’s actions as he says he was a big fan of his.

“To be honest, my jaw is a little stiff, but nothing too serious, no. It’s just weird. He’s like the No. 2 guy in the world, a UFC professional fighter. What is he doing coming and attacking me?”

“I can understand if I was talking shit or if I was egging him on, or whatever. But I was a fan of the dude! I was following him on Instagram. Like what are you? It just doesn’t make sense to me. It was just a really bad representation of himself. Like, it was not a good look.”

Furthermore, the rapper compared the incident to Conor McGregor’s attack on an elderly man in an Irish pub last year (see it again here).

“Not to throw shade, but it was literally like how Conor punched the old dude at the pub. Like he didn’t do anything. It was literally one of those situations. It was so high school energy, weird.”

Park revealed that he initially didn’t want to press any charges, but after talking to Jung, he is considering it but has yet to actually follow through. And finally, Park says he has doesn’t wish any bad karma on Ortega, has no plans on suing him for his money and has no desire to see him go to jail.