Reconstructing T-City: Brian Ortega
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It seems like a lifetime ago since Brian Ortega was in prime position to become the new face of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. With a multitude of outside ventures, including the oft running Modelo Especial commercial, Ortega was on the cusp of becoming a mainstream star before his matchup with Max Holloway, a fight in which Ortega, albeit due to dubious circumstance, was the odds on favorite.
What followed was one of the most one sided beatings in combat sports history, with Holloway breaking the UFC record for most significant strikes in a single round before Rener Gracie mercifully stopped the contest. In the wake of this defeat, Ortega has not been seen in the octagon in well over a year and a half due to a number of ailments, most notably a torn ACL.
In the time since Ortega’s last bout, featherweight has seen immense turnover. Divisional stalwarts such as Cub Swanson, Frankie Edgar, and Ricardo Lamas are no longer ranked in what has become arguably the UFC’s most competitive division. New contenders such as Zabit Magomedsharipov, Josh Emmett, and Calvin Kattar have entered the fray as fledgling contenders. Current divisional kingpin Alexander Volkanovski’s best win prior to Ortega’s bout with Holloway, was against Darren Elkins of all people. In the current UFC featherweight division, Ortega has faced a grand total of one ranked featherweight. So where does Ortega fit into the current landscape, and how can he adapt as a fighter to maintain relevance in a division as deep and varied as featherweight?
Ortega’s most dangerous and obvious skill set lies in his submission oriented ground attack. In an era where the metagame regarding the ground revolves around using the cage to either wall walk when on bottom, or using positional control against the fence to enact ground and pound from the top position, Ortega echews both of these strategies completely in favor of an old school meta.
Ortega is at home in the bottom position, a rarity in modern MMA. Where as other bottom players such as Demian Maia prefer to attack from the half guard, which allows them to come up on single legs to sweep their opponents, Ortega uses a variation of the closed guard. This tactic severely diminishes Ortega’s sweeping ability, but drastically increases submission opportunities. As soon as Ortega is able to trap his opponents in his closed guard, he launches into the first sequence every person who trains Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu learns, the armbar from closed guard.
This sequence starts with Ortega trapping both of Tavares’ wrists with his gloves. Instead of directly gripping Tavares’ wrists, which would be a dead giveaway that an attack is coming, Ortega hides his intentions by placing his own wrists over Tavares’. Sensing no danger, Tavares continues to pressure into Ortega, using his hands as posts while he attempts to pass. Since the beginning of this sequence, Ortega has foregone the standard closed guard in favor of placing his right foot on the hip of Tavares, creating an anchorage point for Ortega to elevate his hips into an attack. When Tavares staggers his stance, because he has control over his arm on the same side he has the anchorage point, Ortega is able to launch into the armbar.
While we have not seen much of Brian Ortega in top position, partially due to his lack of shot ability, Ortega has shown that he is more than capable of inflicting damage from the top position; exhibiting a controlling mount along with the use of intelligent ground and pound, highlighted by his ability to slice his opponents up with elbows.
This prodigious ability to consistently land devastating elbows has translated to the feet in his more recent bouts. As a striker, Ortega is one of the most instinctual strikers in mixed martial arts despite his unorthodox nature. In the rare occasions where it seems he is throwing in rote combinations, Ortega’s lack of confidence is glaring, yet when he trusts himself to read his opponent and react he more often than not makes intelligent decisions that at times, change the entire complexion of the fight.
While some of his most exceptional moments have come while countering his opponents, Ortega mostly employs a volume based pressure-oriented attack despite being one of the more slow-footed fighters in the UFC. Ortega is rarely discouraged from coming forward, which when combined with his status as one of the most durable fighters in the UFC, allows him to routinely break opponent’s late in fights. In his battle with Renato Moicano, one of the premier strikers in the UFC, despite losing most of the exchanges on the feet Ortega’s pressure forced Moicano to shoot for a desperate takedown late, costing him the contest.
Despite Moicano attempts to tripod, the standard preliminary defense for the guillotine when in top position, Ortega is able to finish with an arm-in guillotine that does not control his opponent’s tricep, showing how strong Ortega’s “squeeze” is.
Ortega is rightly venerated for his ability to finish his opponents late in fights, as four of his six victories have come in the third and final round. One of the primary reasons for this stems from Ortega’s willingness to consistently punish the body of his rivals. Despite not having the prettiest mechanics, Ortega routinely employs lever punching, throwing two or more strikes in a row with the same limb, to change his rhythm, creating a variety of openings, mostly to body.
Following the knee from Moicano, Ortega throws a naked hook to head of Moicano who is forced to defend with the double forearms guard as he concedes to a close ranged exchange. Ortega recognizes that this leaves his body open and immediately winds up to throw a hard left hook to the body. Instead of resetting the distance which would allow Moicano to recover, Ortega continues to crowd Moicano and discourages him from adjusting his guard by throwing a throwaway right hook to the head before squaring his stance and throwing a rear uppercut to the body of Moicano, two full beats after the last punch, changing his rhythm.
The jankiness, for lack of a better term, of Ortega’s striking helps him more than it hinders. While the strikes of other featherweight contenders such as Calvin Kattar might be prettier, the unorthodox nature of Ortega’s strikes routinely confuse his opponent. His left hook is the primary example of this as it resembles more of a shovel hook when he throws it from range than it does a standard left hook. This often confuses his opponents, as they are not able to tell whether the incoming strike is coming for the head or body, which combined with Ortega’s propensity for punishing the body, makes his striking extremely difficult to predict.
Guida keeps his right arm close to the body as he finishes his combination, as that is the closest available target to Ortega. Ortega recognizes this and throws a left hook from the same armslot he would when throwing to the body, except he reaches across his body to land on Guida’s head.
Most of Ortega’s counters come when he is safely out of range, and when his opponent tries to strike his way in without forcing Ortega to have to defend the initial few strikes. However, when his opponents patiently wait for the correct range to begin throwing at Ortega, his defense can only be described as porous. Opponents can back Ortega up quite easily as he has a tendency to retreat from strikes linearly. When defending against attacks, Ortega alternates between using a variety of reactionary shells, where he brings up one of his arms to defend against the corresponding strike, and a double forearms guard.
Both of these strategies work under the correct circumstances, but when they are used in the manner Ortega tends to employ them, they often are more harmful than helpful. Ortega has the habit of retreating linearly, which prevents him from being able to create an angle to counter his opponent. Brilliant analyst Aiden Hayes, describes this problem exquisitely in his Ringcraft in MMA piece when he states, “By retreating in a straight line, counter-punching is extremely difficult, as is angling off to exit or efficiently defending while moving backward. Your options are to either put yourself directly in harms way or run out as fast as possible. If the advancing fighter continues to push forward, the retreating fighter will eventually lead directly to the cage, even if the retreating fighter can initially stay out of range. This becomes makes evading strikes or takedown attempts more difficult, and it indicates to your opponent that a linear advance can be used nearly all the time.”
This problem is compounded for Ortega due to the use of the double forearms guard and to a lesser extent the shell, as they only allow a fighter to counter their opponent when in close range or the clinch. One of the reasons why Max Holloway had so much success against Ortega is that when Ortega attempted to use his shell or double forearms guard, he kept retreating, allowing Holloway, the sports preeminent volume striker to continue throwing while providing very little in the way of counters to discourage the all-time great.
All is not lost for the California native however, as the double forearm guard in particular has been shown to be effective at the highest levels of mixed martial arts. Ortega’s primary strategy, unyielding pressure, is what makes the double forearms guard so effective. If instead of retreating while employing the guard, Ortega either presses forward or maintains his ground, his much maligned defense would improve drastically. Take Justin Gaethje for example, who used to be a ferocious pressure fighter who wore his opponent’s down with heavy strikes to the body and legs.
While it seems like a gross oversimplification to state that if Ortega just stopped going backwards, he would shore up the most significant hole in his game, it would truly elevate his place in the featherweight division. The beauty of this adjustment is that not only does it alleviate a glaring issue, but it allows Ortega to implement what is possibly the best aspect of his game, the clinch. Employing a double forearms guard in the manner Gaethje uses it adds another dimension to Ortega’s pressure, as he would be more equipped to force his opponents against the fence.
Here Gaethje uses his double forearms guard to defend against Firmino’s strikes and proceeds to enter into the clinch by using a single collar tie to control Firmino’s posture and ability to create space.
Due to Ortega’s deficiency when it comes to open spaces takedowns, the ability to force the clinch on his opponents, either in open space or especially against the cage, would great increase his ability to get the fight to the floor, where Ortega is able to finish even the uppermost echelon of fighters. When in the clinch, Ortega’s eagerness in attacking the body forces what some would call a “money or your life" decision. The “money” in this situation is his opponent’s gas tank, as if fighters maintain an upright posture, Ortega will continuously punish the midsection, leaving opponents more vulnerable to his striking and increasing the chances of them eventually wilting to his constant pressure. However, if they decide to defend their body by lowering their base and decreasing the surface area that Ortega can attack, he will take their neck and choke the “life” out of them.
As Swanson looks to enter into the pocket with Ortega, Ortega stands his ground by forming a bicep tie with his right hand to prevent Swanson from pushing him back, and an underhook with his left to prevent Swanson from moving back and breaking the clinch. Once he gains control, Ortega switches to an overhook with his right and connects both his hands, trapping Swanson against him. As Ortega is maneuvering Swanson around, he slowly works his his hands closer to Swanson’s shoulder, starting to break his posture. Swanson attempts to post on the hips of Ortega, stopping Ortega from further breaking his posture. This however allows Ortega to attack the body of Swanson with clinch knees. Ortega then starts to retreat, which straightens Swanson’s arms as Swanson attempts to maintain enough distance to prevent Ortega from landing more knees, but allows for his posture to be broken enough for Ortega to switch to the headlock position and than the anaconda.
Now against the fence, Ortega uses his head to force Swanson to pummel in order to get the underhook on Ortega’s right side. While this happens, Ortega creates a bicep tie to force an opening, which he exploits by using the collar tie to drive Swanson’s diaphragm into his knee. This breaks Swanson’s posture which allows Ortega to switch from the bicep tie to the arm in guillotine. Ortega understand how crucial the fence can be to a fighter’s ability to stave off guillotines so he subtly propels himself off the fence with his foot and jumps to closed guard. As Swanson attempts to back out, Ortega readjusts his grip so that his right elbow is no longer flared and pins Swanson’s triceps to his chest, tightening the choke, and forcing the submission.
Once Ortega grabs a hold of his opponent’s neck, it is not just a matter of being able to defend the initial threat, as Ortega has routinely showed the ability to transition from one submission to another. When grappling against Ortega, there is no respite from attack as there is always another submission coming, further wearing his opponents down and forcing them to yield to the man they call “T-City”.
Off an ill-fated takedown attempt, Ortega immediately latches on to the arm-in guillotine before transitioning to the anaconda, forcing Brandao to fall to his back in an attempt to relieve pressure. As Brandao hits the floor, Ortega rolls over his shoulder with the anaconda still attached. As Brandao is flat and Ortega is already over his head, Ortega cannot trap the legs of Brandao, which would greatly intensify the choke, so Ortega transitions to the mount while keeping his left leg over Brandao’s shoulder, allowing him to seamlessly transition to a mounted triangle. To lock in the choke, Ortega rolls to his back and creates a 90 degree angle so that his left hamstring is directly on the carotid artery of Brandao. Brandao’s only hope to escape is to stand up and stack, but Ortega prevents that by under hooking the nearside leg, forcing Brandao to yield.
Even with this tweak to his overall strategy, it is still difficult to evaluate Ortega’s future prospects in the UFC. In his return, after one of the most one-sided, devastating contests in UFC title fight history, multiple career altering injuries, and an almost two year layoff, Sean Shelby has booked on what the surface seems to be a horrid style matchup for Ortega in Chang Sung Jung, otherwise known as The Korean Zombie. A monstrous counter puncher with sublime grappling chops who originally made his name by being unworldly durable seems like an awfully tough matchup for the returning contender, yet there is something about Brian Ortega that makes him impossible to count out in even the worst circumstances. After two years, MMA fans will finally be able to see the fighter who’s rise overshadowed the rise of the current featherweight champion, Alexander Volkanovski, and hopefully a fighter who has developed a few new wrinkles to his already devastating attack.