UFC 266: Alex Volkanovski questions Brian Ortega’s fight IQ

Alex Volkanovski lifts the lid on what he really learned about his UFC 266 rival Brian Ortega while filming The Ultimate Fighter.

Pictured is new UFC Featherweight title holder from Australia Alex Volkanovski before his win against Max Holloway at UFC 245 in Las Vegas. Picture: Richard Dobson

Alex Volkanovski will tell you he learned plenty about what Brian Ortega knows during filming of The Ultimate Fighter.

Yet just as importantly, what he doesn’t.

Only three weeks out from his UFC 266 headliner against Ortega in Las Vegas, UFC featherweight champ Volkanovski has revealed exactly what he discovered about his American rival during their weeks together as rival TUF coaches.

While much has been made of the growing animosity between the pair – with Volkanovski recently labelling Ortega “a little princess” – the champ has also now opened up on what he calls Ortega’s lack of understanding about elite level fighting.

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It comes after the TUF finale involved all four members from the Team Volkanovski crew — albeit with Team Ortega member Tresean Gore forced out late due to injury.

Asked about what he would take from TUF into his upcoming title defence against Ortega, Volkanovski said: “I’ve certainly learnt more about him.

“I don’t want to sound cocky but (during filming) you could hear him explaining things to his fighters, he was saying the right things without totally understanding it.

“I think he has watched, say, my last couple of fights with Max Holloway and said to himself ‘OK, I need to change my game’.

“So now he’s trying to understand what the top guys are doing. Not only in our division but others.

“I feel like his team has said ‘we’ll work on this, this and this’.

“So, right now, (Ortega) thinks he understands this chess game we’re about to play. But he’s going to realise — and real quick — that he doesn’t.”

Quizzed on having all four fighters in the finale of TUF, a program which also launched the career of Australia’s first UFC champ Robert Whittaker, Volkanovski continued: “I’m not going to take credit because it was the fighters who went out there and did there thing.

Volkanovski during his win against Max Holloway at UFC 245. Picture: Richard Dobson

“But I do remember hearing some of the comments from Ortega’s team throughout the show, even when we first picked our fighters. They were saying to us ‘oh, you haven’t done your research on these guys’.

“They literally thought we were underdogs.

“But we were looking for different things. And while I also never wanted to change the style of our guys, we knew there were certain things they really had to drill and understand.

“So we did that.

“But even game planning, (Ortega’s) coaching was ‘get him to the ground and f … him up’.

“But we had more strategy.

“We’d be telling our guys ‘watch out for this, nullify this, then when you set this up, he will headhunt here and then we want you to draw the reaction out of him which gives you a takedown’.

“So I’m not claiming we made these guys better fighters.

“But do I think we got them better prepared for the fights? One hundred per cent I do.”

So as for what he now knows about Ortega?

Volkanovski and his coaching staff during filming of The Ultimate Fighter

“I don’t think he understands it,” Volkanovski continued, referencing the intricacies of elite MMA fighting.

“Yes, in his last fight (against Chan Sung Jung) he showed a higher level than he has previously. And while I won’t go into detail, you could tell he’s starting to understand certain things like distance control.

“But while he’s aware of them, I don’t think he really understands.

“His last fight showed he can use certain tools. But he also had an opponent who let him, who gave him the perfect fight.

“But I’m going to throw so many more things at him, have him worrying about so much.

“I want to make a statement.

“Show him ‘you ain’t on my level’.

“Right throughout the show I’ve been telling him that. And obviously he has been talking the talk, telling himself that, yes, he can do certain things.

“So I’m going to show Ortega he can’t.”

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