Brian Ortega was crouched on the ground, trying to immobilize his opponent. Blood was streaming from his face, the result of either a scratch or a punch. Adrenaline was coursing through his body. And this was before he became a professional mixed martial artist.
It was 2009 or so, he recalls. At the family’s home in a particularly rough precinct of the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles, Ortega had been tasked with making sure his older sister didn’t leave the home to indulge her drug habit. When she tried to walk out the door, Ortega grabbed her and applied a chokehold.