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Marlon Vera had a great opportunity to stop the rise of one of the UFC’s rising stars and that’s exactly what he did.
“Chito” finished undefeated Sean O’Malley in the first round of the UFC 252 co-main event last Saturday night.
Between the fight, the place on the map, the main event that would follow, and the trashy talk of her opponent and her team, one of the main keys to Vera’s victory was to keep her emotions in check.
“It was weird because when I walked towards the cage there were times I felt like I wasn’t ready,” Vera told MMA Fighting, appearing on What the hell. “It’s because I wasn’t nervous. I was so calm I thought, “What the fuck is going on with me?” In the locker room, I was hitting mittens, struggling a little and thinking to myself, “I have no feelings.” I felt like I was there, but there were no feelings.
“Then the nerves started and I was like, ‘Thank God! I missed you guys. Welcome.'”
Vera entered the fight on a five-game winning streak at 135 pounds, but was coming out of a controversial decision loss to Song Yadong in a featherweight fight in May.
O’Malley, who was awarded a contract on Dana whiteContender Series in July 2017, had won his four appearances in the Octagon, including two in the first round in 2020. It was his last performance at UFC 250 that made more talk than ever of “Sugar”, and it led to a challenge to be made to the veteran now of 25 fights.
The 27-year-old had already given a verbal agreement to face a different opponent a week before, but plans changed a lot to Vera’s delight as it wasn’t just O’Malley who wanted the fight, it was were members of his opponent. the coaching staff including Tim Welch.
“They won a fight against Eddie Wineland. I was already booked to fight [Jimmie Rivera] and they started calling me, ”Vera explained. “The coaches are calling me. Where the hell do you see a top trainer doing that? A coach may have an opinion, “I wish my student would fight X guys”, but these guys were talking shit. “Chito’s easy money”, and blah blah blah.
“My response to them after the Wineland fight, I said to them ‘Enjoy your few minutes of fame because as a fighter you are shit.’ Guess what? They keep calling me. He was on the verge of becoming the greatest coach of all time if his guys kept beating people because that’s how media works. He had become so massive, whatever. I fucked all their shit.
“How I was controlling myself, I don’t know what was going on in my head. I’m good enough not to pay attention to negativity.
In a recent appearance on What the hell Prior to UFC 252, Vera was well aware of everything that was being said by the O’Malley team, as well as by the fighter himself. The Ecuadorian fighter wouldn’t let the trashy talk enter his head no matter what has been said, and who it has been said – including his coaches and manager.
There was an Instagram post directed to Vera before last Saturday night that caught his wife’s attention.
“My wife sent me a message that Sean wrote with Snoop Dogg shouting, ‘O’Malley, O’Malley, O’Malley’, and it said ‘Chito Vera’s girlfriend in bed with Chito’, or something else, ”Vera said. “I laughed. I told my wife not to even answer. Don’t pay attention to it because I really don’t care. But somehow I have. could fuck him.
“People are mean on social media because in other sports they can say something and get away with it. In other sports if you talk wild you get a sanction, a fine, or money taken away from you. UFC lets you get away with it, which is cool. I don’t mind trash talk. I like it, I really have fun. My vocabulary was pretty bad when I won, but some people get by with things. The only problem is, you get baptized. If you want to talk wild, be sure to bring a pair of balls into the cage.
During the UFC 252 post-fight press conference, Vera revealed that the trashy comments from O’Malley’s coaching staff continued before the fighters marched to the octagon, and just before that the right was about to begin.
When asked what happened, Vera went into more detail.
“I was shaking my head, thinking, ‘You don’t even know what’s going to happen,’ Vera said. “Like Dana White said, if you don’t know, now you know. I just knew something he didn’t know. Fighting is a weird thing, man. You just know. I don’t know how to explain it, I just had it in me.
“They kept yelling sh * t. Even Herb Dean told them to shut up the f * ck when the fight started. They shout, “F * ck him, he’s scared. Why are you talking Scared? I am ready to die. I won’t let you take money from my family. I’m not letting you take my ranking, I’m not letting you take anything from me yet.
“If you’re talking shit, you better gain or lose that same energy. If I insult you and lose, I will always insult you after the fight.
The end of the fight was mired in controversy. O’Malley was shown losing his balance on his left foot but kept trying to fight. When a trade led to another occurrence of O’Malley hitting the mat, Vera jumped over the top and landed a big punch, followed by an elbow before the ref saw enough.
Upon closer examination, Vera landed a hard kick that affected her opponent, which appears to have led to the injury getting worse. Vera felt he took the best shots from O’Malley and once the fire returned it felt like he had broken the 24-year-old’s will.
“There is an energy in this game,” explained Vera. “When he kicked me hard, my energy didn’t run out. I wasn’t like, ‘Oh, damn, he kicked me so hard, let me throw in the towel.’ When he kicked me, it was like, ‘Okay, you kicked me, now you’re going to take mine.’ I checked one of those too, so I figured that was where the injury was coming from, but it was actually coming from a kick.
“That’s how we break the fighters: when we take the best from them and nothing happens. I kicked him and he broke. It means my conditioning coaches are doing a great job.
Now that he has a major boost after the biggest win of his career, Vera is happy to spend time with her family and go surfing. The star of Team Oyama and RCVA hopes to return before the end of the year.
Given that the promotion had already set up a fight between him and Rivera, Vera is hopeful that the UFC will return.
“I think when the UFC comes back to Vegas in November, that would be pretty cool,” Vera said.
“I’m in the standings now and I’m looking up. Let’s do the fight with Jimmie. This is the fight to be fought.
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