Later on, 25-year-old Brian Ortega will look back at his first week of training camp as just another night of sharpening his blades. But three minutes into his fifth and final round of sparring, in his first week of a grueling training camp, the rising mixed martial-arts star is looking worn down.
Tall and lanky, with his hair in a warrior’s top-knot, Ortega is drenched in sweat. He’s breathing heavy, and his hands, normally near his chin, have dropped to his waist. He’s tired, and everyone watching him knows it.
Charlie Khong, an experienced wrestler and one of Ortega’s four rotating sparring partners that night, was relatively fresh. He pressed his advantage. Sensing an opportunity, Khong shot in toward Ortega’s legs for a takedown.
An hour earlier, Ortega would have caught Khong in his first step and countered by dropping his weight on top of him in a heavy sprawl.
But he’s caught off-guard, just a hair too slow. Ortega widened his base to block the initial takedown, hooking his left arm just under Khong’s right shoulder.
“Come on Brian, fight through it!” Jitesh Patel, one of Ortega’s coaches, calls out.
The two struggled for what felt like an eternity — really, about five seconds — when suddenly, the tide turned.
Out came a low roar of frustration. Ortega shifted his hips, turned to his right and twisted Khong’s body. As he flipped his attacker onto his back, Ortega landed a few shots to Khong’s ribs and took control, ending in perfect attacking position.
“He’s got a switch,” his trainer, James Luhrsen said, smiling. “That’s the difference with Brian. He’s got a second wind, and his heart is bigger than his brain — he’ll go all out.”
On June 4, at UFC 199, Ortega will test his training in what might be the biggest match of his career, just miles away from his hometown. That night, at The Forum in Inglewood, Ortega will put his undefeated record, and his ranking as UFC’s 12th-ranked 145 pound fighter on the line against 12 year octagon veteran Clay Guida.
Something special
Ortega’s fighting career began when he was just five years old, on the streets of San Pedro.
His parents, Martin and Rose, emigrated from Mexico to the United States in 1984. Martin, now a chef for Marymount University, was an electrician in his native Hermosillo, Sonora. But, since he couldn’t speak English when he arrived in the US, he began working in restaurants.
He remembers watching as Brian played with the neighborhood kids, before a group of older, bigger kids began picking on them.
“I saw him stepping to one of them, and I said ‘whoa, what’s going on?’” Martin recalled. “I’d better start training this kid, because if he’s going to be doing that, it’s better he learn to defend himself.”
Ortega said that he’s always had a chip on his shoulder.
“It’s because of who my dad was,” he said. “He’s humble and quiet, but he’s got a reputation…he was a badass street fighter in his day.”
His father, he said, grew up poor — he spent his youth working for his grandfather. “It was like the Third World, you know?” Ortega said. His father’s family could barely afford shoes — boxing gloves were absolutely out of the question.
“Every Friday, he’d watch Solo Boxeo, have a few brews after working, and he’d tell me ‘I’d have been a world champion,’” Ortega remembered. “But he came here to give us a better life.”
Ortega was a handful, his father said, but he was also a quick learner. Within three years of starting kickboxing training, he was among the top kids in his school’s class. Catching inspiration from the exploits of jiu-jitsu master Royce Gracie, Martin took Ortega to the nearby Gracie Academy.
“At first I didn’t like it. The kids class was too kiddy, and the only other option was the adult class, and that was scary,” Ortega remembered. “They’re in there, trying to choke each other out, and I’m just a kid, man.”
But he stuck with it there, and soon excelled. Within a few years, he was teaching classes at the Gracie Academy; first, the kids, then the adults.
“From day one, you could tell he was something special,” said Jitesh Patel, a Gracie Academy teacher. “We see a lot of people who come in and talk big, but the truth is told in training, in sparring, and in heart…some people are naturally gifted, but when it comes to competition, it’s the ability to fight through things that you can’t teach.”
What further sets Ortega apart, Patel said, is his drive to learn. “His first triangle choke, he didn’t understand. He had a hard time learning the mechanics…and each time there was a class on the triangle, he’d let his partner perform the move until I walked away — then he’d practice it,” Patel said. “Now it’s his bread and butter, it’s his claim to fame.”
The Breakwall
Ortega’s nickname is T-City — for Triangle City. He’s finished four of his five victories by submission with the triangle choke. His jiu-jitsu training has made him a world-class fighter, able to roll on the mat and hold his own with some of the best fighters in the world.
“His ground game, people want to stay off of him, because he’s so good fighting off of his back,” Patel said. “Wrestlers are getting hurt, and even jiu-jitsu guys are getting afraid of him.”
But it wasn’t until Ortega met Luhrsen that he became a well-rounded fighter — one who could challenge for the world’s top prizes.
Luhrsen, a surfer and boxing trainer who kept up with the South Bay martial arts world, had heard of Ortega through the Gracie Academy.
On the day he and Luhrsen first met, Ortega was running around with trouble — gangsters he knew from his old neighborhood, including one who was wanted for kidnapping.
“We grabbed some burritos and we went to the Redondo Breakwall to enjoy the last few meals before he turned himself in,” Ortega recalled. “And that’s when James saw me.”
Luhrsen walked up to Ortega, pointing a finger. “What’s a kid like you doing,” Luhrsen said to Ortega, his voice dripping with disdain, “hanging out with them?”
Ortega remembers looking back and forth, afraid his friends would jump Luhrsen. “I looked at the guy I was with…and he didn’t say [anything],” he said. “That’s when I looked at James and thought this guy must be something.”
In the seven years since, Luhrsen has become like a second father to Ortega. The two train together doing cardio along the beaches and in Palos Verdes. Ortega works with Luhrsen in his Harbor City-area garage, lifting weights and working on striking in what they call “the dungeon.”
And on Sundays, the two often go surfing, a Luhrsen passion. “My brothers used to run that place — surfing and fighting,” Luhrsen said of the Breakwall. “But it’s not like that anymore.”
Surfing, Ortega said, has become one of his escapes — and it’s one he keeps at, despite nearly drowning at that same Breakwall in February, when he was thrashed by high waves despite Luhrsen’s warning to stay out. A Good Samaritan pulled an unconscious Ortega out of the water; he was soon at Little Company of Mary, recovering after having suffered his first knockout at the hands of Mother Nature.
“All of us have something to we do, even if it just takes the stress away for just 30 minutes,” he said.
In preparation for the upcoming fight against Guida, Luhrsen and Ortega have been together practically 24 hours a day, patching holes in Ortega’s game plan.
More than that, Luhrsen’s mentored Ortega, keeping him away from the gangsters and ghosts of his past that Luhrsen dealt with himself growing up.
Together the two co-own Black Belt Surfing, which Luhrsen describes as being based in leading a positive, disciplined lifestyle. When Ortega isn’t training, Luhrsen encourages him to give back by visiting children’s hospitals, or setting up surfing events with the Mauli Ola Foundation, benefitting kids with cystic fibrosis.
“We’re all about helping those kids with special needs, who don’t have the opportunities that we have,” Luhrsen said. “Helping the ones who can’t do the things that we take for granted, and putting a smile on the kids who are fighting.”
Three steps to glory
In Las Vegas, on March 17, 1990, two light-welterweight boxing champions, Julio Cesar Chavez and Meldrick Taylor, faced off in what was billed as an epic “thunder versus lightning” showdown.
The fight didn’t disappoint. But impressive as Taylor’s speed was, he was ultimately no match for Chavez’s power; the Mexican legend’s fists struck Taylor like a baseball bat to a watermelon. The fight was stopped in the 12th round by the referee two seconds before the final bell, as he deemed Taylor too hurt to continue.
It was named fight of the year and, eventually, the fight of the decade by Ring Magazine, cementing Chavez’s legacy as one of the world’s greatest fighters. But Taylor’s career was upended. While he continued to box for more than a decade after, he was never quite the same man.
“I don’t want to end up like Meldrick Taylor,” Brian Ortega said, pulling out his phone to show a documentary clip on YouTube.
The video shows two Taylors: one, a 23-year-old with his whole life and career ahead of him; the second is at 36 years old, Taylor’s speech slurred and difficult to understand. It’s uncomfortable to watch as Taylor protests, calling himself a world-class fighter.
Ortega fears his career meeting the same end, chasing his pride while his body fails him.
“In a perfect world, I retire at 33 — done. No longer in the fight,” Ortega said.
He dreams of opening up his own academy, a business he thinks of bringing his two young sons and his younger brother into, if they’re interested.
Ortega is also interested in public service — on the side, he’s learning what it takes to be a firefighter. “I like the schedule,” he said, laughing.
He experienced what it takes to be a first responder — he was at the scene of a fatal crash in late March, when a motorcyclist struck a stopped car from behind and was flung onto the roadway.
“I parked my car, grabbed the bike, threw it off of him and yelled for help,” Ortega said. He cradled the injured rider until an off-duty EMT arrived. But his injuries were too severe — the man died at the scene.
Ortega, covered in blood, left, shaken.
“I’ve seen things before, but…nothing like that, where I’m the one trying to keep someone alive,” Ortega said. “I couldn’t sleep for a week.”
“But at least you were there, you helped send him wherever he was going with a prayer,” Luhrsen said. “Good man.”
Ortega, Luhrsen said, has all the tools to succeed. “He sacrifices a lot, he’s willing to learn, and he’s got all of the tools,” he said. Now, together the two are on the cusp of completing the third phase of their plan for success.
It began with a Pomona-based promotion, Respect in the Cage; it continued with a championship victory with Resurrection Fighting Alliance; and it continues with the UFC.
Ortega’s undefeated record has only one blemish: a no-contest wiping out his 2014 victory against Mike De La Torre for a failed drug test. It was his first fight with the UFC.
He was popped for drostanolone, an anabolic steroid he obtained to help him cut weight.
“I was 30 pounds heavy two or three weeks before my fight, and I knew I wouldn’t make the cut. I went through some people and found a solution.”
He was fined $2,500 and suspended for nine months as a result.
“I was mad at myself, mad at the people who sold me the stuff…I let everyone down, but I let myself down even more,” he said. “I knew what I was taking, and knew it was bad. I should’ve been more professional.”
Ortega bounced back with a TKO victory over Thiago Tavares, and followed it with a submission win over Diego Brandao.
Now, he’s coming up against a man Luhrsen called a “junkyard dog,” in Guida.
But, as a trainer, he’s confident in his fighter.
“He’s got a strategy and he’s got a gameplan, and if Guida makes one mistake, he’s done,” Luhrsen said. “He goes wild, and goes for the takedown…but you have to remember, if you go in to take Brian down, you’re going into his world, and you don’t want that.”
While the future is in sight, Ortega is steeped in the coming fight.
“I’ve got my dream, going to the UFC…I’ve had a lot of opportunities to move on, but every one of them I’ve turned down,” Ortega said. “I can’t live without knowing that I didn’t give it the best shot I can, and after it’s all done, I’ll know how far I’ve gone.
“I’ve got my goal…I’ve got a chance to make some money, get a name and do something, I’ve got to take advantage of it, you know…why not?”
