In hindsight, Cory Sandhagen believes he shouldn’t have given Marlon “Chito” Vera as much of a chance as he did against Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Bantamweight champion, Sean O’Malley.
UFC 299 was a rough night for Ecuador’s Vera, who competed in his first career title tilt against his rival, O’Malley, this past weekend (March 9, 2024). Vera was battered throughout the five-round affair en route to a unanimous decision loss (watch highlights) that had all rounds in favor of “Sugar.”
Vera, 31, has raised the question of controversy since the night, but ultimately underperformed in the eyes of most, including his previous successor, Sandhagen.
“Chito obviously had no business being in the cage with O’Malley,” Sandhagen said on his YouTube channel (h/t MMA Fighting). “Really tough showing by Chito. Awesome performance by O’Malley. You’ve got to give the guy all the credit in the world even though he was fighting like a homeless-looking Chito.
“I’m going to try to spend this whole breakdown not s—tting on Chito the whole time, but it’s probably going to turn into me s—tting on Chito the whole time,” he continued. “That fight really frustrated me because it was one, unbelievably uncompetitive. Two, I feel like a dummy for thinking Chito was going to do better because that’s almost literally what all of his fights look like unless he gets some type of knockout. And three, I just think it’s not that cool that Chito even got that opportunity to begin with, because like I said, that’s what we all should have seen coming. I don’t know why I bought into the Chito hype. That was really stupid of me.”
Vera was rewarded his title shot off the heels of a unanimous decision over Pedro Munhoz at UFC 292 in August 2023. Directly prior, Vera suffered a five-round split decision defeat to Sandhagen, who has since beaten Rob Font and extended his winning streak to three.
In the immediate title picture, Sandhagen will likely have to wait behind Merab Dvalishvili before he gets his title shot. He just hopes O’Malley doesn’t hold up the division with an attempt at Featherweight gold.
“O’Malley won almost the same kind of way I beat Chito, except he hit Chito a lot harder and he hit Chito a lot more,” Sandhagen said. “So good on him for doing that. Instead of overwhelming Chito with [wrestling] shots and stuff like that, he started overwhelming Chito with a ton of feints. Didn’t give him the same look every single time. … O’Malley kept it super dynamic the entire time, didn’t give him the same look too many times in a row, and that’s why he won.”
For complete UFC 299 results and play-by-play, click HERE.