Doing it for Michael: How tragedies pushed Jose Cortez to overcome addiction

Tony Cortez starts out every morning grateful, and if he isn’t there immediately, he’s quickly reminded of why he should be.

A glance in the mirror and Cortez (5-0) sees two reasons why. He sees himself. He also sees Roman numerals “IV XV MMV”.

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It’s a date. April 15, 2005. The birthdate of his late cousin and friend, Michael Oliveras, who died in 2022. Cortez carries him spiritually, but that spirit has manifested itself physically, too. The tattoo on Cortez’s neck is the same one Oliveras had on his arm.

“Even if I have a shirt on, I can see it and remember that not everything is forever,” Cortez told MMA Junkie on Wednesday. “Not everybody’s gonna be here forever. So I always remember that and make sure to tell people what you wanna tell them while they’re still here.”

Oliveras died due to a drug overdose. He was only 17. Cortez admits it easily could’ve been him. He, too, was using M30s, pills designed to look like 30mg oxycodone pills, but are actually much worse. They’re fentanyl.

Cortez isn’t proud of his lowest moments, but he’s proud of the distance he’s traveled to hit his highest. Dealt a bad hand from the start, Cortez grew up in a home without a father. He, his mother, and sister lived in a garage for much of his upbringing. Cortez credits his grandmother for raising him and his sister, as well as Oliveras and his brother.

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“Not having my dad around was kind of hard for me,” Cortez said. “My dad is a gang member and in prison and that was the example he set for me even though he wasn’t around me. I would hear stories about him and I kind of idolized my dad being a scary gangster because everybody was scared of him or would say stories.”

When an injury ended his high school wrestling career, things went sideways. That’s when he started running with the wrong crowd and fell into substance abuse. Downward he spiraled and in a weird way, tragedies were the only things that somehow pulled him out.

“I was depressed because I didn’t place at state like I wanted to and I just turned to drugs and tried to mask my pain with all that,” Cortez said. “… That shit was a big eye opener for me, my friends passing and they were so young. Just knowing something like that, one of my friends went to prison because they tried to give him murder, and a bunch of shit happened, just scary stuff. That shit fucking scared me straight. I was so low in my life. I was crazy. I couldn’t hold a conversation with people. I don’t know, I was like a lunatic. I was so gone in my brain.”