Korean Zombie wanted Jay Park to press charges against Brian Ortega: ‘I have never felt so much anger’

Chan Sung Jung, better known as The Korean Zombie, is prioritizing a UFC featherweight title shot over a showdown with his nemesis Brian Ortega.

The undead Korean contender and Ortega were scheduled to fight back in December, but the bout fell through when Ortega sustained an injury. Since then, the pair have exchanged quite a bit of trash talk, and there was an even an infamous incident between their teams at UFC 248 earlier this month.

Despite all that has happened with Ortega, the Korean Zombie places more importance on fighting for gold than settling his beef with his rival in the cage.

”I was given the okay by my surgeon to practice sparring in the beginning of May, so I’ll start with that,” the Korean Zombie said in video posted to his YouTube channel, first updating on the timeframe for his return (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.

”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,” he added.

The Korean Zombie also looked back on his team’s UFC 248 run-in with Ortega. According to most accounts, Ortega slapped the Korean’s associate Jay Park—who is a musician not a fighter—in the crowd. The incident allegedly occurred while the Korean Zombie was in the bathroom.

”With everything that was going on, I thought that the UFC would seat us farther apart from one another,” the Korean Zombie said. “But they sat us pretty close and it was impossible for him to have not seen me. My wife made eye contact with Ortega a few times and I was told that he kept looking in my direction as well.

”I still remember how I felt when I found out,” he added. “I have never felt so much anger in my body. I was livid. I remember I started looking around for Ortega despite the security guards trying to stop me. I was furious that I couldn’t do anything, but apparently Ortega was immediately kicked out of the stadium by the security guards after what he did.”

The Korean Zombie continued, explaining that he initially hoped Park would press charges against Ortega.

”After the fight, me, my wife, Jay Park, and a few other members of our party met with UFC officials to discuss our options,” The Zombie continued. “A professional fighter hitting a civilian? While he was sitting minding his own business? It wasn’t even a man to man fight. Being the stubborn person I am, I had to call the police. This was assault, not part of a scripted show. The police showed up, and they began writing out a police report of what had happened until UFC officials intervened.

”The UFC officials asked us what we would like to do,” he added. “If it was up to me, I would have wanted to press charges, but I was not the victim of this incident. Jay Park was the victim. He was in charge of choosing the proper consequence. But if he did press charges against Ortega for assaulting him, he would have to attend hearings and have meetings with prosecutors and he felt that his time would have been wasted in the process of trying to punish Ortega.”

What do you make of these comments from the Korean Zombie?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.com on 3/23/2020.