Marlon Vera and Sean O’Malley will meet for the second time in their respective careers this weekend at UFC 299, but ‘Chito’ thinks their first fight ‘doesn’t matter’ as they’ve both changed as fighters over the last four years.
The win he went on to pick up against Sean O’Malley turned out to be controversial amongst fans due to the finishing sequence and is still to this day disputed by the champion O’Malley.
Since then ‘Chito’ has fought seven times, losing only twice to Jose Aldo and Cory Sandhagen.
Marlon Vera dismisses importance of first win over O’Malley
Since O’Malley claimed the UFC bantamweight title, there has only ever been one clear contender for his first title defense due to the history between the two.
Despite the history playing in his favor, Marlon Vera told ESPN that the first meeting between the two ‘doesn’t matter’ because of how they’ve both changed since then.
“I try to think that it doesn’t matter. New opponent, new energy just a similar face. Time passes and people change and everything changes so for any reason I’m thinking this could be easy, for any reason thinking I could get done quickly, I’m always expecting the worst.
In my last 30 fights, I have never thought this is going to be easy. I put all the pressure on my shoulders I see the worst of scenarios and I say let’s see what happens we’re gonna go and let’s go hard.” Vera said.
Vera won’t be changing his style to please the fans
Following his last few performances, ‘Chito’ Vera has drawn criticism for being too slow of a starter. In his five-round main event against Dominick Cruz back in August 2022, Vera found himself two rounds down to one, going into the fourth round.
Similarly against Cory Sandhagen, all three judges deemed the 31-year-old to have lost the first two rounds.
Despite the criticism Vera has no plans of changing his style to suit the desires of the fans, and suggested that Aljamain Sterling‘s downfall against O’Malley was because he tried to appease the crowd.
“It’s gonna start as a fight. I’m not very good at reading comments or paying attention to the public opinion, I get it and I’ve heard because I watch my fights sometimes, but that’s just another opinion.
“I don’t see any other fighters telling me I’m too slow, it’s just public opinion and honestly I don’t care. Talking about changing styles, Aljo (Aljamain Sterling) could be an excuse or could be true, he was saying he was trying to be entertaining that’s why he fought like that.
“I don’t give a f**k who’s watching I’m trying to win myself. At the end of the day I live for my family and I want to give them the best and being a world champion will be part of that so I’ll fight how I fight.”