Brian Ortega slaps Korean Zombie's translator at UFC 248, just like he promised

Brian Ortega takes his threats very seriously, and the one to find that out quite unexpectedly was Korean rapper, Jay Park.

Park was accompanying the 'Korean Zombie' Chan Sung Jung at the cageside of T-Mobile Arena at UFC 248. He was seated in the fighter section of the floor seats alone when Ortega confronted and physically assaulted him. Jung was reportedly in the washroom at that time.

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Ortega was not happy with Park's translation

The brawl stemmed from something Jung said as part of trash talk about Ortega on an episode of 'Ariel Helwani's MMA Show'. Park was his translator for the occasion, and according to one of his translations, Jung had said that Ortega "ducked" out of their scheduled fight in December. Ortega had withdrawn from their bout that was to be held at UFC on ESPN+ 23 due to injury.

In response to that, Ortega oddly took it out at Park, who merely translated Zombie's words to English, on his Instagram. He wrote, "Jay Park welcome to the fight game. Don't be surprised if I slap the (expletive) out of you when I see you."

On Saturday night, Ortega followed through. According to initial eye-witnesses, Ortega approached Park when Jung was not there and open-hand slapped him, after which he was escorted out of the arena by the security.

Brian Ortega getting escorted after trying to start a fight with Zombie pic.twitter.com/21FmOsZB8E

— /\/\ (@MirccMMA) March 8, 2020

Park later confirmed what happened to ESPN's Ariel Helwani, who tweeted the chain of events from his account.

Park told me Ortega went up to him while Korean Zombie went to the bathroom and asked if he was Jay Park. Park said yes and, according to Park, Ortega slapped open palm slapped him.

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) March 8, 2020

Fighter Angela Hill, who was also present at the venue, tweeted that she had witnessed the scuffle, and jokingly said that it reminded her of high-school.

Happened right in front of me, felt like I was in highschool again holding people back “don’t do it maaan!” https://t.co/I4JZyVhE7d

— Angela Hill (@AngieOverkill) March 8, 2020

MMA Junkie reported that Dana White was not aware of the roots of the altercation when he was asked about it post-event. But he said that no legal actions will be taken, as UFC does not want anyone getting arrested. He hinted at a possible Ortega vs. Jung rebooking in the future.