Ahead of his fight against Deiveson Figueiredo at UFC Abu Dhabi on August 3, Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera has made a huge change to his fight camp in the hopes that he will return to the win column.
Marlon Vera‘s last fight came against current UFC bantamweight champion, Sean O’Malley, at UFC 299 this past March, and the Ecuadorian was unfortunately dominated over five rounds.
Former UFC flyweight champion, Deiveson Figueiredo finally made the move up to bantamweight last year beating Rob Font in his debut at 135lbs.
The Brazilian then submitted Cody Garbrandt in the second round of their UFC 300 fight earlier this year, earning himself a title contender fight.
Marlon Vera builds his own gym ahead of UFC Abu Dhabi
After losing the biggest fight of his career last time out, ‘Chito’ decided to make a huge change to his UFC Abu Dhabi fight camp.
The 31-year-old has always trained at RVCA with head coach, Jason Parillo, however in September last year, the gym was closed. Vera continued to train with Parillo and the remaining fighters at RVCA, but ahead of his August 3rd fight, he has decided to change that.
The Ecuadorian has built his own private gym close to his home in Costa Mesa, California, and will continue to train with Parillo and a small team to avoid ‘bulls*** and politics’.
“I’m excited and happy about having this private facility for myself and you’ve got to invest in yourself, Jon Jones said one day, in order to be the best you’ve got to invest in yourself and I’m doing that,” Vera told The MMA Hour.
“It’s my gym. It’s private but my friends will be training here, I’m not going to close the door to my people so it’s pretty much me and Parillo.
“I’m going to keep using the same team, but now have my own private facility so I don’t have to deal with bulls*** and politics,” the 31-year-old added.
Vera admitted that he made the switch because he is hoping to focus more ahead of his huge fight against Figueiredo, and that is something he couldn’t do in his previous environment.
“I feel like at some point in life you have to just have your own (gym) and that piece of mind it will take you to another level and give you clarity, it will give you focus and this is no playing around or Mickey Mouse s***, it’s strictly to win fights, I’m ballsy enough to roll the dice,” Vera continued.
Marlon Vera reveals the original plan was to fight Henry Cejudo
The fan favorite also admitted that he was hoping to fight at Madison Square Garden in November, and the original plan was to fight former UFC double champion, Henry Cejudo, but the promotion changed their plans for ‘Triple C’.
“I was looking to fight in November, not for time off but because I wanted (to fight) at MSG, I love MSG, it’s a special place, but they offered me Cejudo first, I said yes I’ll fight that little f*****.
“They came back and said we have different plans for (Cejudo), I don’t really know the exact thing, they said what about Figueiredo, I said f*** yeah, he’s a former champion, undefeated in the weight class, why not put another former champ in my collection of heads,” Vera stated.
Despite the original plan, Vera is now fully focused on ‘Deus Da Guerra’ and is prepared for war against the Brazilian.
“That’s neither here nor there, I’m going to focus on Figueiredo, I know that’s a big challenge and I’m taking this just as seriously as I was taking the title fight and all of the fights, I’m going to get in there and f****** let this motherf***** know we’re on my time.
“If I have to dig deep and f****** go to the basement and pull all the demons (out), we’ll bring them.” Chito finished.