Yair Rodriguez barely had a chance to celebrate the biggest win of his career.
This past Saturday’s UFC Long Island main event ended in awkward fashion after Brian Ortega suffered a shoulder injury with less than one minute remaining in the opening round. TKO (injury) was Rodriguez’s win, which prompted some discussion about the quality and validity of the end result.
From Rodriguez’s perspective, there’s nothing controversial about his latest win.
“In the moment, I knew that I had the submission,” Rodriguez said Monday on The MMA Hour. “Of course, the attempt of the submission was there. That led to a reaction from Brian Ortega that led to his injury.
“For me, it’s a win, no matter what. Regardless, it’s a win.”
When Rodriguez got in place for Ortega’s submission attempt, it was obvious that Ortega was struggling. Having since reviewed the finishing sequence, Rodriguez believes his opponent actually made a clear tapout motion before the bout was officially stopped.
“I felt that it was stretching, because I felt like I had it,” Rodriguez said. It was tight and so I wrapped my leg around my stomach to give him an armbar.
“He was pulling and as he was pulling, if you take a close look at the video, he tapped once. He tapped once, and then I realized that he tapped once, and he released the pressure so I let go. The video will show you the tap. I let go, and I saw he was in pain, so I didn’t want to punch or anything. Although it was something, I knew he would keep moving if the ref didn’t decide to stop the fight. But, I wasn’t going to do any other .”
.
Rodriguez was the No.1 in Saturday’s event. 6 featherweight in MMA Fighting’s Global Rankings and will likely leap over Ortega in next month’s edition. However, he’s aware that there are those who will be reluctant to make him the No. 1 contender for champ Alexander Volkanovski after such a disappointing ending.
The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America winner has had a UFC career filled with starts and stops and missed opportunities, including a loss to former featherweight champion Max Holloway, a Hail Mary elbow victory over “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung, and a two-fight series with veteran Jeremy Stephens that is remembered for an accidental eye poke that ended their first meeting in just 15 seconds.
With all he has been through, Rodriguez doesn’t surprise that there are still people who doubt his qualifications.
“Stuff like this has been going on in my career since the beginning of my career, because they speculate if I win by mistake, by luck, by accident, by whatever, I don’t know what else do I have to do in order for people to start believing that I’m for real,” Rodriguez said. “If they want to keep on believing that I’m not for real, if I haven’t earned their respect by this point, I don’t know what else to do. “I think that I am just a very lucky man and that is why I was selected as the No. 1 contender spot.
“Actually, I’m really lucky, but I don’t think I’m that lucky that I haven’t put in any effort or shows, so it’s just crazy to believe that people still think I’m not for real or whatever. I’m OK with whatever, people are always going to talk and think or say or do things, but my job is to show them different all the time. This is what I do .”
Ortega stated that he believed he was winning every second of the fight up to the point when he hurt his shoulder. This is something that Rodriguez completely disagrees with.
” I think that I was winning,” Rodriguez stated. “I think I connected with the better punches. But whatever, like [UFC President Dana White] said, everybody thinks they deserve a title shot, everybody’s doing their best. I think I was winning the fight, he thinks he was winning the fight. The result .”
is final.
