Dominick Cruz loses to Marlon Vera via knockout in front of a hometown crowd.
Over the weekend, San Diego native Dominick Cruz and Marlon Vera faced off in a Bantamweight battle at the Pechanga Arena in San Diego.
At 37 years old, Cruz was looking forward to throwing his name back into the big headlines of UFC. However, he was facing a much younger, 29-year-old Ecuadorean MMA fighter such as Marlon Vera. The Ecuadorean is ranked among the top 5 in the UFC bantamweight standings since May of this year.
Vera, 27, says that Cruz has a very incompetent style of MMA fighting level, criticizing his stance in the octagon and his overall movement during MMA fights.
“Honestly, me and my team, we really think the way he fights is kind of very low level,” Vera said. “There’s no base, there’s no good stance, all that movement side to side — we told each other, ‘We have to kick this guy’s ass.’ But by saying that, you put a lot of pressure on yourself," Vera said about Cruz after the fight.
“I just believe that his style is not the best style for MMA. Maybe for boxing it can work better, but for MMA you’ve got way too many weapons going. What he does well, he mixes takedowns with that movement. That’s when he’s successful. But I was like, it’s going to be hard for him to take me down, so we were pretty confident, but we knew this fight wasn’t easy," he added.
The knockout on Cruz came in the fourth round of this fight, but Vera said that when he dropped Cruz in the first round, he remained patient while knowing he was going to have control over this fight that he eventually won.
“I was just being patient, I was taking my time,” Vera said. “I dropped him in the first round, and when I dropped him I didn’t go crazy. I didn’t try to chase the finish, I never chase the finish. I don’t have any problems standing in front of you and finding those openings," the Ecuadorian said.
“I pay attention to every single UFC, top to bottom,” Vera added. “It doesn’t matter who’s fighting, it doesn’t matter who’s first or last fight of the night, I’m watching. I like to watch. That’s the reason I love doing commentary, because I’m watching live. I can pick up the energy of the fight, I can see what’s going on in there. I’m definitely going to pay attention and I will see who they give [Sterling] next.”
