Jorgensen balances romance with fight preparations

While planning how to propose to his girlfriend, Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight contender Scott Jorgensen thought he had accounted for just about everything.

Then his career got in the way.

Three days before the couple were to leave on a Hawaiian vacation in a private beach house where Jorgensen planned to surprise Jamie with a custom-made ring, his manager called to ask if he could take a short-notice main-event bout against his longtime friend Urijah Faber.

It was an offer Jorgensen couldn’t refuse. The fight was booked to replace the scheduled April 13 bout between John Moraga and flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson on The Ultimate Fighter Finale card at Mandalay Bay.

“My girlfriend had been counting the days until we left, but I get the call that it’s a go and she’s like, ‘We’re not going (to Hawaii), that’s it,’ ’’ Jorgensen said. “That’s why I’m (marrying) her, because she’s got my back, 100 percent.”

Jorgensen had to fly immediately to Las Vegas to start training and doing press. He also arranged for Jamie, who is from Las Vegas, to fly in to see her family, but the couple figured they wouldn’t have time to see each other with the busy schedule the UFC put together for Jorgensen.

He had other plans.

“I had to get her mom to get her to come over to the Cosmopolitan where I was staying. I had the Bellagio fountain show all timed out and roses everywhere. I got her a glass of champagne and a Red Bull for me,” Jorgensen said. “She’s like, ‘What is all this?’ and I told her it was because we couldn’t go to Hawaii. So she’s watching the water show and she turned around and I was on my knee, popped the question and she cried and said yes and I was like, ‘OK, now I can go fight Faber.’ ”

Jorgensen had thoughts of waiting to propose at the weigh-in or even in the cage after the fight, but said he was so nervous about the whole thing that it would make training impossible.

“I was more stressed out about popping the question than I was dealing with this guy over here,” he said, pointing to Faber. “I had to get it out of the way, so I could get work done.”

Faber joked that Jorgensen had another motive.

“Scott couldn’t handle the pressure of this fight, so he had to bring in someone to back him up because he didn’t want to do it alone,” Faber laughed.

■ VERBAL SPARRING — Fans are in for a treat if Saturday’s UFC welterweight title bout between Nick Diaz and Georges St. Pierre is anywhere near as entertaining as a promotional conference call featuring the pair last week.

Diaz alternated between poignant statements and nonsensical rambling during a 45-minute session that set social media ablaze. His main point of contention seemed to be that St. Pierre is rich and pampered, but Diaz maintained that he would be the same way if he had St. Pierre’s money.

After lambasting St. Pierre for several minutes, Diaz called himself a fan and then accused St. Pierre of being the one talking trash. When St. Pierre tried to get a word in, Diaz would interrupt, even speaking first when the champion was asked direct questions.

At one point, the mild-mannered St. Pierre seemed to have had enough, calling Diaz an “uneducated fool” and asking Diaz to “listen to himself.”

The two will settle their differences in the cage in the main event of UFC 158 on Saturday in Montreal. The pay-per-view card also features two matchups between potential welterweight title challengers as Carlos Condit fights Johny Hendricks and Jake Ellenberger takes on Nate Marquardt.

■ HUNT IN FOR OVEREEM — A few days after posting on Twitter that Mark Hunt had turned down the opportunity to replace injured Alistair Overeem against former champion Junior dos Santos, UFC president Dana White announced Hunt would indeed take the fight.

Hunt, who just won his fourth straight fight by knocking out Stefan Struve on March 2 in Japan, will fight dos Santos at UFC 160 on May 25 at the MGM Grand.

Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509. Follow him on Twitter: @adamhilllvrj.