Featherweight contender Yair Rodriguez defeated former title challenger and No. 2 ranked Brian Ortega in the UFC Long Island main event, but the fight didn't end the way that he wanted it to.
The bout came to an abrupt halt late in the opening round when Ortega suffered a dislocated shoulder during a grappling exchange with Rodriguez. During the event's post-fight press conference, Rodriguez explained what happened from his perspective.
"He tried to take me down again, and I think his arm was really trapped on behind on my back. When I went to the floor I went for the arm bar. I was trapping him real tight with this arm trying to push him way to go for the arm bar from the bottom. In think, in the moment, when he was trying to the arm out from there - I saw him doing a face and I was like, okay, something happened," Rodriguez said.
"He went to the floor grabbing his shoulder and I stopped fighting. I realized something was going on, so I stopped fighting. I asked him, what's going on? What happened? He was like, 'my shoulder. My shoulder,' so I stopped. That's it."
Brian Ortega: ‘I was winning every minute of the fight’
Yair Rodriguez UFC Long Island Post-fight Press Conference Video
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