Was ortegas game plan a hail mary?

[Gracious Warrior]

In the post fight interview when DC asked about the the guillotine Ortega said "we worked on that the whole camp. Thats what I meant by take his head"

It made me think that a choke or other sub was what ortega was hanging his hat on.

And its a shame because his striking didnt look very good last night compared to his zombie fight.

Very little diversity in strikes, less movement, timing seemed a little off and also seemed a little slower.

Maybe he would have had a better result if he came in with the mind set that he is equally dangerous on the ground and feet and can finish volk in either place.

Or maybe im reading too much into a few words....

 

[Pierced7681]

Ortega went full retard on that guillotine squeeze. If he had slowly kept on sinking it in instead of going full blast we’d have a new champion.

 

[AldoStillGoat]

I wouldn’t call it a Hail Mary cause he got so close twice but yes he saw the writing was on the wall and went for broke

 

[Shay Brennan]

What an iconic moment though, I thought it was over.

Ortega is legit good. I think he beats pretty much everyone other than the two champs he lost to.

 

[humdizzle]

thats how alot of his fights went. losing the standup then hail mary sub.

 

[Kvothe_the_kingkiller]

I think more like, hang in there and wait for your opportunity, and then capitalize. But don’t panic just because you’re down a round or two.

Kinda like Sylvia v Big Nog. Hung in there and then capitalized.

But Volk wasn’t blowing smoke when he said he’d trained hard with Craig. He had, and escaped Ortegas sunk holds.

 

[SherdogFan23]

If you want to call a submission a hail mary then yes. Ortega's best strength has been his submissions if you look at his whole career. He has power and gets KD's but most of his finishes are submissions, not TKO/KO.

 

[felmmando]

I wouldn’t call it a Hail Mary cause he got so close twice but yes he saw the writing was on the wall and went for broke

I would. Ortega has won fights with Hail Marys--fights he seemed to be en route to losing, just as he was losing to Volkanovski.

 

[xhaydenx]

And its a shame because his striking didnt look very good last night compared to his zombie fight.

Very little diversity in strikes, less movement, timing seemed a little off and also seemed a little slower.

His striking didn't look as good against Volk as it did against Zombie because Zombie is nowhere near as good a striker as Volk. Zombie is very basic on the feet.

It's easy to be creative and find your timing when you're fighting someone who barely feints, is super predictable, and mostly plods forward like Zombie does.

Volk on the other hand, was throwing all sorts of shit at him. He was also feinting non-stop and keeping Ortega on the back foot. All of that stifled Ortega's creativity.

Anyone who thought he was going to come in and outstrike Volk just because he did it to Zombie has zero clue lol.

 

[Domitian]

Trying to sub a guy who's never been subbed in his pro career is definitely a hail mary.

 

[Coolkid666]

When Volk was in that triangle and looking Ortega right in the eyes during....that was gangsta. Someone needs to find a snapshot of that

 

[Skarsgard]

That's kind of his m.o. Outside of the KZ fight where he caught him early, I can't think of a single dominant performance of his. It's all come from behind finishes.