Vera and Sean O’Malley relive their first fight

UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley and Ecuador’s Marlon “Chito” Vera will meet for the second time on Saturday in the main event of UFC 299 in Miami.

At the time, O’Malley was a young, rising and undefeated prospect in the UFC. Vera was a 23-fight veteran who had failed to break into the title race. Vera was coming off a controversial split decision loss, while O’Malley was red hot, fresh off two viral knockouts.

Vera won by technical knockout in the last minute of the first round. Everyone agrees on that; The result is officially in each of your records. However, what exactly happened depends on one’s perspective. The key moment of the fight occurred when Vera delivered a kick to O’Malley’s right leg that shut down O’Malley’s peroneal nerve, leaving him temporarily unable to lift his ankle and toes.

In other words, his foot went numb and he couldn’t really move. He finally fell and Vera hurt him with elbows that ended the fight.

There is a history of peroneal nerve injuries in MMA, but they are exceptionally rare. And because of the rarity of the injury, O’Malley has maintained that he doesn’t feel like he really lost to Vera. In fact, he has created an entire collection of “Undefeated” clothing based on this notion.

O’Malley (17-1, 1 NC) has a chance to potentially “erase” the only blemish on his career rocket. Vera (23-8-1), who has won five of his last six fights, has her first opportunity to win a UFC championship. In anticipation of the rematch, here is an account of what happened on August 15, 2020 from O’Malley, his trainer Tim Welch, Vera and his trainer Jason Parillo.

Sean O’Malley: We were offered Chito in the co-main event of a big PPV card [UFC 252: Miocic vs. Cormier 3]. He was coming off a loss to Song Yadong, in a fight I thought I had won. I liked the confrontation. I entered with a lot of confidence.

Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera: he was the new name and he had already been fighting there for a few years. I feel like the main reason I had that fight was because of Song Yadong’s robbery. I think the UFC thought something like: “he’s fine buddy, we know that. We know that the decision in your last fight was wrong. We will give you this chance against Sean, and either he will take your name away or you will take his publicity away.”

Tim Welch, O’Malley coach: When we saw the Chito video, we thought, “This is a perfect matchup for us.” Chito is dangerous. He kicks hard and is durable, but this was a very good matchup for us and the UFC knew it. If you are a company and you have a guy who is flashy and who knocks people out every time he fights, you will try to build him up. So yeah, I think the UFC thought this was a really good fight for Sean.

Jason Parillo, Vera’s trainer: I thought it was a perfect fight to shine a light on Chito, because of the notoriety O’Malley had. I knew Sean because he was starting to get some promotions, but I wasn’t really in tune with who he was at the time. I thought he was a very rhythmic and athletic guy. He knows how to drag guys around the cage. For me, it was a question of how much guts he had. From what he had seen, he had not been tested in the cage yet.

The week of fighting between the two was relatively uneventful, although perhaps in a trolling effort, O’Malley dyed his hair the colors of the Ecuadorian flag. Vera is the first fighter to represent Ecuador in the UFC. The fight took place inside the Apex in Las Vegas, before the main event of the heavyweight trilogy between Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier.

O’Malley: I dyed my hair [the colors of] Ecuador, maybe a little karma there. I probably shouldn’t have done that, I probably won’t do it again.

Vera: A lot of people worried about hair, but it’s social media nonsense. People just do things to get inside your head or be cool or whatever. Those are the colors of my country. So for you to do that, you’re generating excitement for me, right? Those colors mean Chito Vera right there. So, it was free advertising.