Yair Rodriguez thinks he was doing well before Brian Ortega’s injury: “I kind of saw him wobbling”

Yair Rodriguez believes he was having success against Brian Ortega before the unfortunate end to their bout.

Yair and Ortega shared the Octagon inside UBS Arena on Long Island, NY this past Saturday (July 16). This was a highly-anticipated featherweight collision that was action-packed for as long as it lasted.

Just four minutes and 11 seconds into the bout, Ortega’s shoulder popped and the bout had to be called. Rodriguez was awarded the TKO win via injury. It was an anti-climatic ending to a fight that had a lot of promise.

During the UFC Long Island post-fight press conference, Yair Rodriguez recalled when he knew something had gone wrong with Ortega (via MMAJunkie).

“When I went to the floor, I went for the armbar, and I was trapping him really hard, trying to push him away to go for the armbar in the bottom,” Rodriguez said at the post-fight news conference at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y. “I think at the moment when he was trying to get the arm out from there, I think I saw him doing a face, so something happened.

“He went to the floor, he grabbed his shoulder, and I stopped fighting. I realized something was going on, so I let him and I stopped fighting. I asked him, ‘Hey, what’s going on? What happened?’ And he was like, ‘Oh my shoulder, my shoulder.’ So I stopped, and that’s it.”

Yair went on to say that he felt he had Ortega on wobbly legs at times in the fight.

“I think I was doing really well,” Rodriguez said. “I connected with a couple of solid jabs. I think I connected with a good right hand a couple of times, an overhand, and like a cross, and I kind of saw him wobbling. I hit him with a couple of good low kicks, high kicks.”