Quotes from Brian Ortega

I don't want to spend all the money I've made and then have to hustle fight to fight.

There's always a way to pull back and discredit ourselves, but once you just shut that out and start doing it, you realize things about yourself that you never thought were possible.

I just want people to realize that it doesn't take much to be a good person. Simple things is all it takes.

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.

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.

One thing I took - you know, especially from boxing at a young age - from my coach was, if you're a jiu-jitsu guy, and you only cater your training to jiu-jitsu, there's going to come a day and time in your career when you face a guy who is a great wrestler, has great takedown defense, and he's going to make you look silly.

Sometimes when you get eager, you get sloppy. Sometimes when you get sloppy, you get knocked out.

I am who I am. I'm a cool person, and I don't think I need to sell myself. I'm just going to let the fights keep talking.

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

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

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.

I've proven I can hang in there, go through adversity, and pull tricks out of the bag.

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

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.

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.

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

I believe we all have a responsibility to try to help other people in this world. To me, my ability to help and to do good for others will only increase if I'm more known and get to that really super elite level. That would be the huge benefit for me. It would put me in a position where I could just help more people.

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.

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

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

As much as I dream, I have nightmares.

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

Fight fans always appreciate a fighter who is willing to step up on short notice.