Korean Zombie Gives Update On Return Date, Brian Ortega Fight

Zombie

The Korean Zombie provided an update on a potential return to the Octagon.

Zombie was last in action in December when he defeated Frankie Edgar via first-round TKO at UFC Busan. With three wins in his last four, he called for a featherweight title shot soon after. However, it was later revealed that he would require surgery on his eye.

In the meantime, tensions started to rise between him and his original UFC Busan opponent Brian Ortega. It reached a boiling point at UFC 248 earlier this month when the latter slapped his friend and translator Jay Park.

Things appear to have cooled down now with Ortega apologizing to all parties, but the interest in seeing him fight Zombie has increased tenfold.

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So when can it happen? Zombie expects to start sparring in May and then look to book a fight. Ortega is naturally his first choice but a title shot is more important to him at this point:

”I was given the okay by my surgeon to practice sparring in the beginning of May, so I’ll start with that,” Zombie said in a recently-uploaded video (via MMA Mania). “And if I feel like my eyes are no longer a problem, I’ll go ahead and start scheduling fights. I’ll have to fight with whoever can fit in my schedule … For MMA fighters, nothing is really set in stone. They might get injured or have conflicting personal schedules. I can’t give you a name of who I am going to fight because nothing is confirmed.

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”Although Ortega is the first person on my list of fighters that I want to fight, if I had the opportunity to fight for the title first, I would prefer to do that instead.”

Of course, given the coronavirus pandemic, it might be some time before we see any UFC fight take place. Hopefully, that is not the case.

Who do you want to see Zombie face next?