This weekend at UFC 317, Tracy Cortez makes her return to the Octagon against Viviane Araújo. It’s her first fight in nearly a year, following a hard-fought decision loss to Rose Namajunas at UFC on ESPN 59. But for Cortez, every walk to the cage means more than rankings or records.
Before she was a rising UFC star, Cortez was just a little sister chasing the shadow of a big brother with a dream. That dream, and the heartbreak that followed, still drives her every move. Let’s take a closer look at the story and how she has carried the memory of her brother throughout her career.
Who was Tracy Cortez’s brother? How did he die?
Setting up life’s goals can be tough, but for Tracy Cortez, it wasn’t that hard. Her brother Jose’s dream to become a UFC fighter was legit, and he even has a win over the retired MMA veteran Drew Fickett, who competed under the UFC banner from 2005 to 2007. His enthusiasm for the sport was so infectious that Tracy decided to make it her goal to become a UFC fighter, which she did with a rather impressive record.
A tragedy, however, put an end to not just Tracy Cortez’s brother’s UFC dream, but his life as well. Jose Cortez was diagnosed with germ-cell cancer in 2008. He battled his illness for a few more years before sadly passing away in 2011. That took a heavy toll on Tracy, who went through a period of emotional distress. However, the dream was her only way to keep her brother’s spirit alive as she’s recently emerged as one of the surging contenders in her division.
“In your honor, I worked and busted my a** to make your dream come true brother… In the midst of this crazy journey, I started seeing myself becoming the best in the world, your dream became mine,” Tracy Cortez wrote for her brother on social media after she fulfilled his UFC dream.
In a past interview, the UFC women’s flyweight interview also revealed that now that she’s made her dream come true, it’s Jose’s resilience and attitude that he showed which fuels her every time she steps into the cage.
Tracy Cortez honors her late brother in the UFC
How do you keep going when grief hits like a punch to the gut? For Tracy Cortez, it meant chasing Jose’s dream and making it her own. She’s won five of her six UFC fights.
She once shared, “I watched my brother never give up during chemotherapy, radiation, and bone marrow transplants. He was fighting for his life, and he was still smiling. He was literally fighting for his life, so how can I not go out and fight for 25 minutes?”
For Cortez, it’s more than a career, it’s a promise kept. But did you know she has another way of remembering Jose?
Tracy Cortez’s tattoo dedicated to her brother
The bond between Tracy and Jose Cortez was perhaps second to none. To keep her brother always with her as she embarked on the journey that he had always wished to be on, Tracy Cortez permanently inked her brother on her left arm. In the ink, he wears a UFC shirt and his chemo bracelet. “That’s his cancer bracelet,” Cortez revealed in a 2018 interview. “This was his last vacation.”
The tattoo captures more than his image, it captures his dream. In many ways, the tattoo tells her own story too, from heartbreak to hope. While the dream to get to the UFC is done, there is still another dream that all fighters have, which is to become world champion, something that we are yet to find out in the case of Cortez.
Tracy Cortez returns to action at UFC 317. After nearly a year away, she’ll step back into the spotlight against Viviane Araújo. The Arizona native will look to bounce back and continue the journey she started not for herself, but for the brother who believed in her before anyone else.
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