This is the UFC Mexico City live blog for Yair Rodriguez vs. Brian Ortega 2, the featherweight main event for Saturday’s card at Arena CDMX in Mexico City.
Rodriguez is MMA Fighting’s No. 4 ranked featherweight in the world. A winner of TUF: Latin America and former UFC interim featherweight champion, Rodriguez returns for the first time since suffering a third-round TKO loss to Alexander Volkanovski in his battle for the undisputed featherweight title in July 2023. Prior to that, Rodriguez scored back-to-back stoppage victories over Josh Emmett and Brian Ortega, the latter of which ended in the first round due to an Ortega injury.
Ortega is currently unranked in MMA Fighting’s featherweight rankings due to his inactivity. The two-time title challenger has not competed since suffering a shoulder injury in his July 2022 loss to Rodriguez. After starting his UFC career with a seven-fight unbeaten streak, Ortega has dropped three of his past four bouts, losing to then-champs Max Holloway and Volkanovski in addition to his injury setback against Rodriguez.
It’s very possible the winner of Rodriguez vs. Ortega becomes the next man in line to challenge new UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria.
Check out the UFC Mexico City co-main event live blog below.
This story originally appeared on MMA fighting