The expected featherweight clash between Brian Ortega and Aljamain Sterling will undergo a significant change for UFC Fight Night in Shanghai.<\/p>\n
Originally scheduled for the featherweight category, the fight will now be contested in the lightweight division, with a limit of 155 pounds.<\/p>\n
Both Ortega and Sterling weighed in at 153 pounds at Friday’s weigh-in.<\/p>\n
This category change could be a strategy, given that Ortega has had difficulties making weight in the featherweight category (145 pounds) and has seriously considered a permanent change.<\/p>\n
The fight, which is not for the title, is scheduled for five rounds and will be the co-main event at the Mercedes-Benz Arena.<\/p>\n
Sterling, former 135-pound champion, moved up to featherweight after losing his title to Sean O’Malley in August 2019. The 36-year-old fighter is seeking his second UFC belt and has a 1-1 record in his new category, with his most recent loss to Movsar Evloev in December.<\/p>\n
For his part, Ortega has a 1-3 record in his last four fights. Two of these losses were against champions, Alexander Volkanovski and Yair Rodriguez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ortega vs. Sterling: Weight Change for the Shanghai Fight The expected featherweight clash between Brian Ortega and Aljamain Sterling will undergo a significant change for UFC Fight Night in Shanghai. Originally scheduled for the featherweight category, the fight will now be contested in the lightweight division, with a limit of 155 pounds. Both Ortega and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[4810,4811,2096,228],"class_list":{"0":"post-27187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-aljamain-sterling","9":"tag-brian-ortega","10":"tag-lightweight","11":"tag-ufc"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}