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What a whirlwind of an MMA fight week. Just when fans thought the card was doomed, the co-main event featuring Aljamain Sterling and Brian Ortega has taken an unbelievable turn. Initially derailed by news that Ortega had a medical scare during his weight cut, the bout seemed all but canceled. Yet, in a story that embodies the high-stakes unpredictability of combat sports, both men stepped back on the scales, weighed in at a catchweight of 153 pounds, and the fight is officially back on.
Originally scheduled as a featherweight bout, Brian Ortega and Aljamain Sterling's bout will now be contested at a catchweight of 153 pounds.
They both hit the scale at 153 pounds. #UFCShanghai pic.twitter.com/2dNPfFoLoA
— UFC (@ufc) August 22, 2025
Sterling, the former UFC bantamweight champion making his push at featherweight, and Ortega, the battle-tested contender entering yet another prove-it moment, now collide under chaotic circumstances that feel as though they were scripted for drama. This is peak MMA theater—the kind of twist-laden buildup that only this sport delivers.
A Fight Nearly Lost Before It Began
Thursday evening, whispers started circling the fight community: Ortega’s weight cut had gone horribly wrong. The immediate expectation was the bout being scrapped entirely—an unfortunate but frequent reality when fighters push the limits of their bodies days before stepping into the Octagon.
Brian Ortega can barely walk at the weigh-ins dawg 💀 pic.twitter.com/gwcHovDUIX
— Ben Davis (@BenTheBaneDavis) August 22, 2025
Weight cutting in MMA is one of the sport’s most controversial rituals, and Ortega has dealt with grueling cuts before. Known for his tall, lean frame, he has long flirted with the edges of featherweight viability, but moving up just for this marquee showdown meant playing with thresholds at a dangerous point. When reports of his medical scare hit, fans reacted with disappointment, sympathy, and frustration—yet nobody was surprised.
The Sterling-Ortega pairing was one of the most anticipated stylistic matchups on the card. Both are skilled grapplers with proven striking evolutions, and the thought of losing this clash days before fight night felt like a dagger to the event’s momentum. For several tense hours, the MMA community assumed the bout was dead.
A Last-Minute Lifeline: The 153 Catchweight
Then, in a surreal turn of events Friday morning, both Sterling and Ortega appeared at weigh-ins, striding to the scale with a sense of unfinished business. The official announcement confirmed it: the fight is on, reworked at a 153-pound catchweight.
Brian Ortega looked very unwell during his final face-off with Aljamain Sterling after the bout was moved to a 153-pound catchweight fight 😬#UFCShanghai
— MMA Orbit (@mma_orbit) August 22, 2025
This solution, while unconventional, represents a middle ground—Ortega avoids the strain of another perilous cut, Sterling accepts the heavier frame of his opponent, and the UFC saves one of its most compelling fights on the billing. Fans now get the showdown they wanted, but under bizarre circumstances that only raise the stakes.
The catchweight adjustment also reframes the storytelling around this bout. Sterling, who once made 135 pounds regularly at bantamweight, is entering at nearly 20 pounds heavier than his old division’s cutoff. Ortega, meanwhile, essentially missed his featherweight target but salvaged the weekend with compromise. This unpredictability fuels new intrigue: whose body will adjust better to the last-minute conditions? Who turns short-term adversity into fight-night advantage?
Sterling’s Fresh Start, Ortega’s Fight for Stability
For Aljamain Sterling, this matchup represents the opportunity to declare himself a legitimate featherweight contender. After losing his bantamweight crown to Sean O’Malley, Sterling committed to moving up, easing the toll of brutal weight cuts. This bout with Ortega was intended as his launchpad at 145 pounds—but now, given the catchweight, it doubles as an even greater wild card.
HUGE Respect to Aljamain Sterling
He's been made to fight while being heavily compromised many times already and STILL took the short notice weight change vs Brian Ortega
True Championship mentality 🔥 pic.twitter.com/tZ3UiJWdK0
— Xave 🇦🇺 (@VolkStanUFC) August 22, 2025
The “Funk Master” thrives in chaos. His wrestling and scrambling skills are suffocating, and his striking improvements have come in steady increments. Taking Ortega on under awkward, unsettled circumstances feels almost tailor-made for Sterling, who built his bantamweight run around silencing doubt and imposing rhythm amid uncertainty.
Across the cage, Brian Ortega is fighting for something bigger than just another tally in his record. Once viewed as the heir apparent at featherweight, Ortega’s career has been plagued by injuries, layoffs, and stops short of gold. His heartbreaking loss to Alexander Volkanovski and a setback against Yair Rodríguez have only fueled questions about whether he can ever fully deliver on his immense potential. With an already-close call derailing weigh-ins, this fight morphs into a referendum on his resilience—can Ortega overcome the scare, the bad optics, and deliver when the cage door closes?
No one could have scripted this drama: a fainting spell, a hospital trip, assumptions of cancelation, and then, against all odds, the announcement that things are back on. This rollercoaster injects even more intrigue into what could already have been a thrilling clash of styles.
