While the UFC on ABC 3 headliner was only just getting started when a Brian Ortega shoulder injury brought the fight to a premature close, Yair Rodriguez was pleased with the way things were unfolding prior to the unfortunate ending.
“I think I was doing really well,” Rodriguez said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference. “I connected with a couple of solid jabs. I think I connected with a good right hand a couple of times, an overhand, and like a cross, and I kind of saw him wobbling. I hit him with a couple of good low kicks, high kicks.”
Rodriguez did appear to be getting the better of the action on the feet, which is probably why Ortega attempted to take the fight to the canvas. Once he did, though, Rodriguez framed an armbar from his back, and that ultimately led to Ortega suffering the fight-ending injury as he attempted to free his arm from the submission. From Rodriguez’s perspective, his maneuver played a part in ending Ortega’s night.
“When I went to the floor, I went for the armbar, and I was trapping him really hard, trying to push him away to go for the armbar in the bottom. I think at the moment when he was trying to get the arm out from there, I think I saw him doing a face, so something happened,” Rodriguez said.
“He went to the floor, he grabbed his shoulder, and I stopped fighting. I realized something was going on, so I let him and I stopped fighting. I asked him, ‘Hey, what’s going on? What happened?’ And he was like, ‘Oh my shoulder, my shoulder.’ So I stopped, and that’s it.”
It was an anticlimactic ending to a bout that was expected to help provide some clarity to the featherweight title picture.
“It sucks,” UFC president Dana White said. “It sucks. It’s a rough sport and these things happen. And it looked like it was shaping up to be a great fight. So, you know, these things are going to happen. What are you going to do? It sucks.”
Ortega immediately lobbied for a rematch in the aftermath of the bout, but White was non-committal regarding any future plans for ’T-City.”
“[Ortega] probably needs shoulder surgery now,” White said. “I had shoulder surgery. It’s a nightmare, and it takes a long time to recover from. We’ll see what happens. I’m not even thinking about that right now. But awesome that they both want to do it.”
More must-reads: