Top 60 Brian Ortega Quotes

I knew what I wanted to do with my life: I wanted to fight.

The weight of the world on my shoulders was something that I had to let go.

It doesn’t matter that I’m taking a fight on a month’s notice. I’ve taken many fights on two seconds’ notice.

Obviously it’s great to train at home and not have to travel and stay in the same time zone. That’s always great.

I dropped out or got kicked out of four high schools.

I’ve seen the worst. In my head, I’ve seen the worst. When I go into a fight, I’m all right. You know what I’m saying? I’ve already made it.

My fifth pro fight, I got my first title fight.

My whole thing is I don’t want to break mentally. I want to find comfort in uncomfortable situations.

Training full-on year round is great, and I love to stay in shape and always being ready, but I feel sometimes I don’t have a life.

You know how it is: you’re a kid, and you see your parents do something, you tend not to want to follow that and do your own thing.

Ultimately, I feel like I’m doing everything right. I’m slowly but surely climbing up the ladder. I’m taking out bigger names with every fight. Not just beating them on a point level – I’m finishing every single one of my opponents.

I’m a businessman, a company man, but I’m no ‘yes’ man.

Ultimately, I’m here to fight the best. I’m not here to stay in and get a couple paychecks. I’m here to do my best while I can and while I’m fresh and make a name for myself.

Fighting was a problem for me in high school.

I liked to pretend a lot. I thought I could be anything that I wanted.

I better be humble. I’m always checking myself.

I’ve never met a fighter who said, ‘I love cutting weight.’

When I go in to fight week, I go, ‘Maybe I’m going to be that guy on the highlight reel that gets knocked out.’ I’m always thinking, ‘How am I going to react? Am I going to be a sore loser?’ I’m almost checking myself in case something bad happens.

I’ve been in so many street fights.

I have my parents to keep me in check, a team that loves me, and I have the ability to go out there, dream, and chase it.

What’s that song? It says, ‘Everything that you do will come back to you in your sweet time?’ That’s why I still don’t relax. Even my coach gets mad at me sometimes. He’s like, ‘Come on, man – relax.’ I go, ‘Nah.’ I’m always good.

I’ll do things that a lot of people think is very risky.

I don’t look like a fighter. I like it, though, because it just allows me to be in the position I am now, to where I can venture out to wherever I want to go. I can go into acting. I can go into this; I can go different ways now. And because of fighting, I can do that.

It’s never been about an opponent. I don’t care who it is. Just throw them in front of me and let me do what I have to do. Let me earn the belt.

Put on a camera and put on some whatever, and you’re an actor. Put me in a cage, I’m a fighter. Put me somewhere else – I’m in an ocean, I’m a surfer. I don’t know what I am, I just do it all. And I want to be good at everything.

All I do is just live in the gym.

Helping people that are down and out is all I’ve ever wanted to do.

I’m the kind of guy who, if you tell me you can’t do something, like, ‘Brian, you can’t do a backflip off that two-floor building,’ and I’m going to give it a shot.

There’s a lot of times when I shouldn’t have been here. I go, ‘Man, I’m blessed.’ I’ve had people shoot at me and had all kinds of stuff happen, and somehow I’m still here, and other people are not.

I really love to help kids that are struggling and going through a tough time, and I want to be a positive light on them.

That’s always been my problem – the lack of fear in some situations.

I get this weird feeling that there’s bigger things to do still, and I can’t wait to figure it out.

My house was a revolving door. You walk in, you walk out, you get whatever you can eat, you leave, you go hang out with friends. I’m on my mission, my sister’s on another mission, my dad is working trying to provide, my mom is trying to do the same thing. And somehow, we’re all co-existing with each other.

I was sitting around, moping and feeling badly for myself. I went to the hospital to visit a child, and it hit me: helping people is what I’m meant to do.

Pretty much, I was a hometown fighter, and everyone was pulling for me. Now I’m a hometown fighter again. It’s a lot of pressure because you don’t want to let people down. They’re yelling your name and chanting for you.

I want to secure my name. I’ll fight who I have to fight for the belt.

For me, I love doing what is said can’t be done.

I’m dangerous because I have nothing to lose.

Sometimes, the best response is no response.

As a pro, in the beginning, I had to sell tickets to get paid. So you gotta be a hustler, and you gotta worry about fighting.

I love being the underdog. I’m cool in my dog house.

I’ve been doing charity work since I’m 20 years old, and now I want to help kids.

My whole life, I thought I sucked. And then I get in here, and I grapple other people, and I’m like, ‘I’m actually good.’

I want the real title. I can’t express it enough that I want to fight for the real title. The interim title, from what I’ve seen… people get it, and then they take it away in a month. I just don’t want to be that person.

Not too many people present a good ground game from the bottom. They survive a little bit, and it’s kind of boring. But not too many people are attacking from the bottom, hurting with elbows. They don’t bring that kind of game because it takes a long time to develop.

I’ve always wanted better for myself; I just didn’t know what route I was going to take.

I’m human, and we all make mistakes. But just because you’re knocked down, you don’t have to stay down. Get up and fight.

For me, I’m just me. That’s what I realized the best thing to be is.

On my block, I had all these guys coming in and out of jail. When I was 13, I was playing outside my house, and one of those guys came across the street and started cussing me out, wanting to fight me. People knew I trained kickboxing and would put the gloves on with my friends, so that made me a target.

The people around me saved my life, not MMA. It was people who said, ‘You’re better than this,’ who told me, ‘You don’t belong in this world.’ MMA and jiu-jitsu and training gave me an escape.

Sometimes I wish I could just fight at 155 pounds.

I got to share the Octagon with Clay Guida. I got to share the Octagon with Cub Swanson. Now I’m going to share the Octagon with Frankie Edgar. These are things that, as a fighter, you always dream of.

Nobody expected me to finish Cub Swanson the way I did. When you see something like that, even I say, ‘You’re finally here. You’re not only hanging with the best of the best, you’re finishing them.’

Sometimes it takes me a little longer to kick into my gears.

It’s a little weird: you’re headlining a show on TV, and obviously, people like to associate that with material things. I drive a – what is it – 1999 Chevy Blazer. There’s no more cushion on the driver’s seat, and the tires are about gone.

Fighting is great, but I can’t do it forever.

I come from a city where we really didn’t have too many role models.

My house always had at least 14 people in it. And one bathroom. So I didn’t really want to be home.

To bring out the best in someone, you really have to push them.

Cub Swanson’s a guy you either get through or you don’t, and I fought him when he was on a nice winning streak.