UFC commentator, Michael Bisping, has offered his insight into the camp of Marlon Vera ahead of his UFC 299 title fight with Sean O’Malley.
Earlier this week former UFC bantamweight champion, Aljamain Sterling, claimed that he has heard from fighters that train with ‘Chito’, that the Ecuadorian hasn’t had a very good camp.
Marlon Vera bounced back with a win in his last fight against Pedro Munhoz but continues to receive comments about his notoriously slow starts to fights.
Michael Bisping shuts down rumors of Marlon Vera’s bad camp
Since then the UFC commentator has spoken about the rumors on his YouTube channel and has opposed Sterling’s statement. During Bisping’s career as a fighter, he was under the tutelage of Jason Parillo, Marlon Vera’s head coach.
Talking on his YouTube channel, Bisping said: “Of course, I know someone over at Chito’s camp, I know Chito myself but his coach, his head coach, Jason Parillo not only was he my head coach he’s also still to this day a very close friend of mine.
“So I was talking to Parillo last night and I’m like have you seen this, have you seen what Aljamain Sterling’s saying, did he (Vera) have a bad camp? Parillo was laughing his head off, he said no he’s not having a bad camp.
“In fact, he sent me some of the footage, let me tell you right now, Chito Vera is looking like a nasty b*****d, he’s knocking people out in training. They’re bringing in the correct training partners and by that, I mean taller and longer.”
As well as putting the rumors to bed, Bisping also offered a professional opinion on Marlon Vera being a slow starter in his fights.
“O’Malley’s not going to try and wrestle him. Yeah sure granted he might go for a takedown and if someone gets knocked down, because that’s the best takedown in the game, left hook. If you drop them you follow them down, certainly Chito Vera because that’s how he got it done in the first one.
“Marlon Chito is a slow starter and that’s always been something that you know has kind of been an issue. He has historically been a slow starter but generally certainly in five-round fights, he has enough time to get going to insert himself to do the damage and win the fights.”
Marlon Vera hopes to become only the ninth different UFC bantamweight champion, as he looks to play spoiler in Sean O’Malley‘s first title defense, at UFC 299 in Miami.