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Brian Ortega Claims Dana White Initially Refused To Compensate Him For UFC 226

The first meeting that Brian Ortega had with UFC President Dana White didn’t go as planned.

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The first meeting that Brian Ortega had with UFC President Dana White didn’t go as planned. The #1 contender for the UFC featherweight title recently met up with the UFC boss to see if he was going to get paid after a wacky UFC 226 fight week but his expectations were met with hesitation.

Ortega was originally slated to challenge Max Holloway for the featherweight title in the co-main event of this past weekend’s UFC 226 pay-per-view event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

However, Holloway had to pull out of the fight after he had been experiencing concussion-like symptoms and was taken to a hospital, which ultimately led to Ortega making the difficult decision to wait it out.

In a surprising move, Ortega revealed on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show that White has initially rejected his requests to receive a portion of his purse for showing up to fight at this event but also noted that he plans to meet with White a second time at a later date in order to see if they can work out an agreement that would have him paid for his efforts in training camp.

“We had our talk. We agreed to disagree pretty much, I told him if I was going to be compensated for anything, you know, if I would get anything. I told him I showed up, I did everything, my weight was good, did the open workouts, the media and he said, ‘No,’” explained Ortega (transcript courtesy of MMAMania).

“So that was that. I was pretty bummed out, heartbroken. After that, we had another meeting yesterday. We talked and he said he was just pissed off. He then said we’d talk again this week and figure things out. So right now, I don’t know what ‘figure things out’ means,” he added.

White may have been upset by the fact that the UFC attempted to get Jeremy Stephens to fill-in on short notice and fight Ortega but the top contender turned down the fight and decided to wait for Holloway to get healthy enough in order to make this fight happen.

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UFC 226 PPV Estimates Show More Concerning Numbers

The UFC’s horrible run of PPV numbers continues.

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Last Saturday night’s (Sat., July 7, 2018) UFC 226 from Las Vegas was supposed to be the biggest UFC card of the year.

Featuring a heavyweight superfight between record-breaking champion Stipe Miocic and light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier, the card also boasted a stacked lineup of top-level talent that, for the most part, produced an extremely entertaining night of action-packed fights.

True, the card lost its Max Holloway vs. Brian Ortega co-main event only three days before fight night and the new co-main, an awaited heavyweight slugfest between Derrick Lewis and Francis Ngannou that turned out to be anything but didn’t deliver, but the prospect of Miocic vs. Cormier for the heavyweight title was legitimately one of the best match-ups in UFC history, at least on paper. However, that reportedly failed to translate into success at the box office despite a shocking KO from Cormier.

According to MMA Fighting’s Dave Meltzer, the card didn’t exactly do gangbusters at the box office, continuing a disturbing trend of UFC PPVs that have failed to draw anything resembling great numbers as of late:

“The expectation going in was that this would be the biggest show so far this year. But the most preliminary of pay-per-view estimates have the show doing a little under 400,000 buys. There are those who believe the loss of Max Holloway vs. Brian Ortega hurt interest, but Cormier vs. Miocic on its own should have been able to do bigger numbers.”

The preliminary card did decent numbers by comparison, with the bouts earning FOX Sports 1 the top spot for cable sports networks. In terms of overall television sports broadcasts, the UFC got third place behind NASCAR on NBC at 4,437,000 viewers and Major League Baseball on FOX at 2,217,000 viewers. The prelims peaked at 800,00 viewers for the featured Paulo Costa vs. Uriah Hall match.

However, the FS1-aired pre-fight show only earned 254,000 viewers and the post-fight show only 155,000 viewers, very disappointing figures considering the circus-like atmosphere Brock Lesnar fostered after Cormier’s win over Miocic.

The low pay-per-view buys continue for the world’s MMA leader, with UFC 226’s estimated sub-400,000 buys following up June’s concerning 250,000 buys – a number that was initially projected at a paltry 150,000 buys. That’s why the UFC is bringing Lesnar back, but at this rate, it may not be worth the perceived insult to the integrity of the UFC – if it has any left at this point.

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Former UFC Champ: Brock Lesnar Is ‘Absolutely’ Doping

One former UFC champ thinks Brock Lesnar is ‘absolutely’ on ********.

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Former UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar’s UFC return is all but a formality – if he can pass series of stringent drug tests, that is.

After the WWE star returned to the UFC in an over-the-top, circus-like affair following Daniel Cormier’s first-round knockout win over Stipe Miocic in the main event of last weekend’s (Sat., July 7, 2018) UFC 226 from Las Vegas, USADA recently revealed the earliest date Lesnar can return to MMA – next January.

With “The Beast” still serving a roughly six-month suspension from his failed tests for clomiphene during his 2016 return at UFC 200 in a victory over Mark Hunt that was overturned to a no contest, Lesnar has only just re-entered the testing pool. The UFC granted him a waiver of the normally mandatory four-month testing period for un-retiring fighters, and they looked incredibly bad for making a glaring exception for Lesnar only to see him fail.

So the heat is back on Brock, so to say, and it may be a tougher fight for him to pass all his required drug tests than his match against Cormier (yes, even though the early odds say Cormier will destroy him with ease). One former UFC champion doesn’t believe he will be able to in order to cash in on arguably the least-deserved title shot in UFC history, as Lesnar hasn’t won since 2010.

Dominick Cruz told the Scott & BR Show on 1090 AM in San Diego (via MMA News) that he absolutely thinks Lesnar is doping:

“Absolutely. One hundred percent,” Cruz said. “If he makes it to the fight I’d be shocked. And I just mean that because USADA is the toughest anti-doping system there is on planet Earth, and that guy is absolutely doping. Period. No ifs, ands or buts about it. And he’s not been in mixed martial arts, so of course he’s been doing that stuff.”

In fact, Cruz believes it so much so he’d be surprised if the hulking professional wrestler actually makes it to the fight:

“How they’re going to get him to be clean on fight night is beyond me.”

You’ll be hard-pressed to find several fans who disagree with Cruz’ opinion here, as Lesnar has long been suspected of PED use and has of course been officially busted in MMA now.

He’ll be eligible to fight again on next January, but he’ll be facing a full gauntlet of USADA tests required to return in the meantime. Is Cruz right in his assumption, or will Lesnar buck the odds and make it to fight night versus Cormier without incident?

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Brian Ortega Wants Featherweight Title Vacated Due To Holloway ‘Water Poisoning’

Brian Ortega has his own plan for the future of the featherweight division.

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Weight cutting continues to be a hot topic in MMA circles.

Whether it was Michael Chiesa nearly dying in his attempt to make the non-title lightweight limit of 156 pounds at UFC 226, or the revelation that featherweight champion Max “Blessed” Holloway would not be competing at the same event, it would seem the UFC has a real problem with its athletes cutting far to much weight.

Holloway would be removed from the co-main event last Saturday night (July 7th, 2018) for what was thought to be concussion-like symptoms. Now, just three short days later, a new theory has emerged, that of ‘water poisoning’ due to Holloway consuming too much water.

“We heard that he was water loading, which is super dangerous,” UFC President Dana White told Kevin Iole. “When you water load, and I didn’t know this for those of you out there that might not know, either, there is such thing as water poisoning. And you can actually drink too much water and die from it.”

The removal of Holloway left the No. 1-ranked Brian Ortega opponent-less for UFC 226. Albeit, he had some suiters, namely Jeremy Stephens and Frankie Edgar both nearly stepped in to challenge the jiu-jitsu ace. Ortega untimely decided to wait for his title shot, a decision that has garnered some pushback from fans.

With the champions immediate future uncertain, Ortega revealed on “Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show” a potential solution to this unfortunate situation.

“From what I’m getting now, they said that Max might not fight for a long time, and he might not even fight 145. So I told them then, make the belt vacant and then I’ll fight whoever you guys want me to fight ASAP. I’ll fight them at UFC 227 here in Staples (Center in Los Angeles) but let’s get that situated.”

Let us know what you think. Is stripping Max Holloway of the featherweight title the way to go?

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Brock Lesnar Sends Message to Heavyweight Division Seconds After Daniel Cormier’s Win

Brock Lesnar is back in the UFC and he’s not pulling any punches with the heavyweight division. The former UFC champion and current WWE superstar has officially announced his intention to fight again after entering the USADA drug testing program …

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Derrick Lewis Bored Himself During Francis Ngannou UFC 226 Fight

Derrick Lewis took part in what many are calling the worst heavyweight fight in UFC history. “The Black Beast” fought Francis Ngannou in the co-main event of UFC 226 on pay-per-view (PPV). Neither man attempted to push the pace as they both…

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