Brian Ortega aspires to be the champion, but says his real goal is to make a difference in children’s lives. He’s already driven around the country, going to hospitals to visit sick children. He’s particularly interested in helping children with cystic fibrosis, but if there is a child in trouble, Ortega wants to help.
His charitable nature is something he got from his mother, he says, who used to visit sick children in the hospital when he was growing up.
He paid it no mind – “You know how it is, you’re a kid and you see your parents do something, you tend not to want to follow that and do your own thing,” he said, laughing – until he was sidelined early in his fight career by an injury.
He was 19 and had won a regional title. He couldn’t fight and couldn’t train and was making himself miserable.
“I was sitting around, moping and feeling badly for myself,” he said. “I went to the hospital to visit a child and it hit me, helping people is what I’m meant to do.”
How Brian Ortega's past motivated him to help children