Although Marlon Vera has wanted to fight Sean O’Malley for a while, he has no particular hostility towards him.
O’Malley’s corner is a whole different story.
Vera was the first female fighter to beat O’Malley in Saturday’s UFC 252 bantamweight co-main event. She took advantage of O’Malley’s leg injury to attack with ground and pounds and land from the topmost position with heavy elbows. Referee Herb Dean was quick to advocate the interruption, which caused no protest from O’Malley as he remained on his back and clung to his leg in apparent pain.
According to Vera, O’Malley’s corner had problems with Dean’s call, which didn’t surprise Vera given the pre-fight conversation he heard from an opposing corner man.
“The guy snored,” Vera said of O’Malley at the UFC 252 post-fight press conference. “When I landed the second elbow, it made a noise, it was outside. And when Herb Dean got in the middle, you could see [O’Malley’s] Jump head back. I see his corner say, “No, that was too early.” We make eye contact and I said, “You know it wasn’t early,” and the guy was suddenly pretty calm.
“The guy was talking shit as we prepared to go to the cage. He yelled, “He’s slow.” It’s like, dude, it’s a tough fight. If you want to try to get inside my head, you have to try harder. I just thought the only way to make you pay is to cheer up your child. “
Much of the publicity that led to their grudge game swirled around O’Malley (a hype video shown earlier that night on ESPN went so far as to compare O’Malley to decorated athletes in other sports, including the NBA -Superstars Russell Westbrook and Luka Doncic and reigning NFL MVP (Lamar Jackson), but Vera wasn’t preoccupied with the outside of the cage narration or any trash talk that might have happened between him and O’Malley in interviews or on social media .
“When it comes to fighting, these things don’t bother me,” said Vera. “You have to hit these guys like me to get what they had. I’m not the type to chase ads or Instagram followers. None of this came about by opening people up and that’s why I’m here. “
In relation to the injury O’Malley sustained, Vera was given the honor of putting a “hard calf kick” on that area, which he landed early in the fight.
Vera has now won six straight bouts with 135 pounds (one loss in his previous fight against Song Yadong was at featherweight) and is next targeting a top 10 opponent. He attributed the loss of the close decision to Song as an additional motivation between the fights and for him that the fight should have been counted in his favor anyway.
“I think I’m a solid top 10,” said Vera. “I did damage to the division. What happened in the last fight made me pretty upset, pretty angry, and actually made me do what I did tonight. I wasn’t happy. I pushed myself a little harder. I was tough on myself. I don’t give myself vacation, I don’t give myself fraudulent days. I thought it was time to dig deep and then I’ll find myself even better. I came to this fight on a mission. I can’t let that happen again in my life.
“That was awful. They take half of my check, they made a pretty cute winning streak that – I’m at seven now, I don’t care what they say, it’s my turn [a seven-fight] Winning streak. “
