‘The Italian Dream’ is back this weekend in a matchup that wasn’t on his radar until it landed on his table.
It has been a long time since we last saw Marvin Vettori step inside the Octagon with the former title challenger being out for 20 months.
After Vettori withdrew from a fight with Brendan Allen due to a freak injury, the last time that the 31-year-old competed was the most devastating loss of his career to Jared Cannonier.
He now returns on March 15 to headline UFC Vegas 104 at the Apex where he will compete in a middleweight rematch.
With Vettori beating Roman Doldize in their first encounter at UFC 286, he will now look to replicate this feat in order to get back to winning ways.
Marvin Vettori says he didn’t expect to fight Roman Dolidze again, agreed to multiple other fights
Having beaten Roman Dolidze just two fights ago, Marvin Vettori recently admitted that this rematch wasn’t something that he was looking at for his Octagon return.
The #8-ranked contender told Shakiel Mahjouri that he originally thought he was going to be fighting Russia’s Roman Kopylov who recently secured a controversial finish over Chris Curtis in January.
“No, actually I thought I was fighting Kopylov, and then actually ended up fighting Dolidze. Honestly, there’s so much about me that I don’t even care about the opponent at this moment so it’s just another fight.”
Vettori went on to say that during his time away where he has been trying to book a fight, the opponent has never really mattered to him.
After alternating wins and losses since losing his middleweight title fight rematch with Israel Adesanya at UFC 263, he has only fought in high-level contests.
In the same interview, Vettori mentioned two other middleweight contenders that he says he agreed to fighting before the Dolidze rematch was made official.
“Yeah I mean, I don’t care. I don’t even know if it was because of their side, just a couple of names were thrown at me but then it didn’t go through. One was (Joe) Pyfer and the other one was (Michel) Pereira I think but I don’t even know if my name got on their table. It did get on my side and I said yes, no problem. I wanted to fight so much that whoever, you know.”
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UFC Vegas 104 is a big moment for Marvin Vettori
After being out for such a long time, UFC Vegas 104 is an opportunity for Marvin Vettori to prove that he is still a threat in the middleweight division.
A lot has changed at the top of the weight class since he last fought with Dricus Du Plessis going on to become the champion and defend the belt twice.
The worry for Vettori is that his former opponent, Roman Dolidze, has been more active than him with back-to-back wins in 2024 following a majority decision loss to Nassourdine Imavov.
Whilst Vettori is still deceptively young despite signing to the UFC in 2016, 20 months out might be difficult for him to shake off in a competitive rematch.