UFC Vancouver: Marlon Vera full media day interview
UFC Fight Night 262’s Marlon Vera spoke to MMA Junkie and reporters at media day for his bantamweight bout vs. Aiemann Zahabi.
VANCOUVER – Marlon Vera thinks he has things figured out after taking the longest break of his octagon tenure ahead of UFC Fight Night 262.
Former bantamweight title challenger Vera (21-10-1 MMA, 15-9 UFC) has been part of the roster since November 2014. He’s only lost consecutive fights twice during the entirety of that run, and one of those situations is now after he came up short of gold against then-champ Sean O’Malley in March 2024 then dropped a unanimous decision to Deiveson Figueiredo in August 2024.
“Chito” said he needed to find out why things didn’t go his way and thinks his unflappable work ethic ended up flipping from a positive to a negative.
“It’s got to be something at a skill or mental level – if you’re falling short, something is wrong, right?” Vera told MMA Junkie at Wednesday’s media day. “It’s so easy to just point fingers. I could blame my coaches, my friends, my family. I could blame anything. But then you just go and take a seat and have an honest conversation with yourself. We know inside what’s going on. We know everything that happened, it’s just a matter of if we want to talk out loud about it. I really feel I was just burned out.
“I trained too hard, just because I love to do it. I don’t drink. I don’t party. I don’t sniff cocaine. So what else can I do? I train all day, every day.”
Vera, 32, said he cut down on his long distance running and other undue stresses on his body. He thinks it could also be the problem for his slow starts inside the octagon, and hopes the results of his adjustments will bare fruit when he returns this weekend.
Welcoming Vera back to the cage will be streaking contender Aiemann Zahabi (13-2 MMA, 7-2 UFC), who has one his past five fights and is coming off a victory over UFC Hall of Famer Jose Aldo. The pair meet on the main card of Saturday’s event at Rogers Arena in Vancouver (ESPN+).
“I have so much experience in the UFC, I’ve been here for 11 years,” Vera said. “I know you can’t just overlook a guy and be like, ‘Yeah, whatever. I’ve fought better guys.’ That sh*tty guy that you call sh*tty, can beat the f*ck out of you on any given night. I treat this fight the same way I treat all the contenders or former champions that I’ve fought. I don’t think, ‘This is going to be easier or this guy doesn’t have what I have.’
“I put myself below in a way like, ‘This guy will kick my ass.’ That’s why I train hard. That’s why I’m disciplined and do the right things. Then when Saturday night comes, I’m going to go fight my ass off.”
Vera returns to a UFC bantamweight division that has a very different landscape than the one he left. Merab Dvalishvili wasn’t champion the last time he competed, and now “The Machine” is going for his fourth title defense against Petr Yan at UFC 323 on Dec. 6.
Although he hasn’t been in the cage, Vera has kept tabs on what Dvalishvili has been doing at the top, and admits it’s been inspiring.
“He’s really good and he fights at a pace where he makes you doubt yourself,” Vera said. “He has showed that he’s not the most skillful striker, not the most clean grappling because he’s not tapping people out like Damian (Maia) back in the day. He has put it together and it doesn’t matter how it looks. It’s amazing what he’s doing and that’s a person that motivates me too.
“Let’s get my sh*t together. Let me figure out how to win these fights, because I can get there again (to a title shot). It would be good to have a fight like that one day. He’s like the guy I’m fighting. On a good streak. It motivates me to be like, ‘OK, let’s prove who is better.’ That gets me out of bed every morning.”
