Brian Ortega talks about his comedown at UFC 303 and finishing with Diego Lopes at UFC 306

Brian Ortega is looking forward to finishing his story with Diego Lopes.

This Saturday, Ortega will face Lopes in the main event of UFC 306. The two were originally scheduled to face each other in a featherweight bout at UFC 303 in June, but Ortega struggled with his weight cut and the fight was changed to a lightweight bout the day before the event. On the day of the event, Ortega was forced to pull out of the event due to illness and instead, Lopes faced Dan Ige on just a few hours' notice before winning by unanimous decision.

On Wednesday, Ortega spoke to reporters at UFC 306 media day and described how he felt that night watching Lopes compete.

“I was in the hotel room and we [watched the fights on TV]” Ortega explained. “I was laying in bed watching his fight and I was like, 'Damn, that should have been me.' But I was also like, 'Well, come on, bro. If that had been you that night, you probably wouldn't have won the way you felt.' Let's be honest. But it was a bittersweet moment knowing that I was there, almost made the weight and we went through what we went through.

“I didn't really want to quit, but you have to make a decision. We accepted it and that was it. But yeah, I felt like we could have put that behind us and moved on to the next thing.”

Ortega now has the chance to do so this weekend. After his victory over Ige, Lopes demanded that the fight be rescheduled and “T-City” was fully in favor of it.

“I didn't hesitate at all,” Ortega said. “Because of what happened before, I'm obsessed. I had to go through the whole weigh-in, compete against each other – we went through everything and started the story but never finished it. On Saturday we finally finished it. I don't want to leave anyone in the dark about how this story ends.”

But while that story may come to an end on Saturday, the journey continues for Ortega. Before the fight against Lopes was originally booked, Ortega had discussed moving up to lightweight, and given the current state of the 145-pound division, the former two-time featherweight title challenger says that could still be the next chapter for him after Saturday.

“100 percent,” Ortega said when asked if he was still thinking about moving to 155 pounds. “Because you have [Ilia] Topuria and Max [Holloway] Fight in October. Then comes the date they set for the fight next year. [Alexander Volkanovski]so it's like a snake to fight for the belt.

“Depending on how this fight goes this weekend will determine whether the fans believe I deserve another chance or not. But either way, my goal is to stay busy and if nothing works out for me at featherweight, then I'll move up.”

UFC 306 takes place this Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas, with the bantamweight title fight between Sean O'Malley and Merab Dvalishvili being the highlight of the event.