MEXICO CITY – Although misinformed, Brian Ortega has found inspiration in the eagle heading into UFC Fight Night 237.
“The rebirth is a nature process that the eagle goes through, and it’s something that felt very close to heart for me,” Ortega told reporters during Wednesday’s UFC Fight Night 237 media day. “It’s some difficult changes that I had to make in my life, my personal life, to be able to really live the rest of my life the right way. For those who don’t know what the eagle does is the eagle lives for 70 years. At the 40-year mark, the eagle loses the sharpness of its beak, the feathers aren’t as good, and its talons are weak. So it has a choice: The choice is to die, keep doing what you’re doing and living the way you are, or isolate yourself way up in the mountains, smash your beak against a rock until it breaks, wait until it grows back, then pluck your talons out, and then pluck your feathers out, and then stay in isolation until everything grows back. Then when that process is done, the eagle can live the next 30 years of its life.
“And that process in nature is called the rebirth for the eagle, and that’s something similar that I felt that I went through in my personal life, where I had to sit in isolation and face myself in a way that I never have before. And I had to just pluck away and be alone for a long time, and now I’m here.”
