Welcome to Midnight Mania!
Marlon Vera has a bone to pick with Sean O’Malley and UFC. The top-ranked finisher is in the title mix and holds a win over ‘Suga,’ but even so, talks of a potential rematch remain prevalent. At the moment, however, that’s not the immediate plan, as Vera is chasing a showdown vs. former champ Petr Yan, whereas O’Malley is booked opposite Pedro Munhoz at UFC 276.
Vera doesn’t like that match up. The Ecuadorian athlete believes it’s O’Malley’s easiest match up in the Bantamweight Top 10, and he thinks UFC is giving him good match ups on purpose to build him up.
“They couldn’t find him a better fight in the top 10,” Vera told Brendan Schaub on “Food Truck Diaries” (via MMAJunkie). “They find the smaller guy with the shorter reach. Everything is to benefit ‘Sugar’ because even if he lost, he’s gonna make an excuse. ‘Oh, I fought a tough guy,’ which who f—king cares? I’ve beat him. When people come to me about it, I’m like, ‘I don’t need that. I’m not looking for hype, I’m not looking for more followers, I don’t give two f—ks.’ I’m making my money, I’m getting up, I’m going after the belt. I’m not going after the hype. I’m not looking to be cool because I know I’m cool. I know I’m funny, I don’t need to chase that s—t. When you try too hard, you won’t get it.”
Vera also revealed he was offered and accepted a rematch with O’Malley, but it never materialized.
Unfortunately for “Chito,” this is something of an obvious statement. UFC is a fight promotion, and they’ll always try to push potential stars by offering them better stylistic match ups. There’s an uncountable number of knockout artists who somehow never end up in the cage with a decorated wrestler, simply because that’s bad business.
As an additional argument for Munhoz, he’s one of the nastiest calf kickers at 135-pounds, and that’s a proven issue for O’Malley. Perhaps it’s not quite such an unfair fight after all?
Insomnia
Georges St. Pierre just casually being incredibly athletic in a variety of different pursuits.
Month #6 of Nate Diaz looking for a reasonable fight.
Michael Chandler has a seemingly endless supply of miserable workouts in his back pocket.
Movsar Evloev is flying under the radar still, but that may change if he’s able to take out Dan Ige this weekend.
Martial arts or demonic possession?
Maybe this is what happened in the Mark Munoz incident.
Slips, rips, and KO clips
Sure, he didn’t win or even last that much longer, but this is a badass way to respond to a spin kick that landed this cleanly (through the glove or not).
The rarely witnessed double front kick KO:
This post is a bit late, but respect to Paul Daley for a pretty great career that consistently almost entirely of knocking the snot out of people.
Random Land
A neat bit of interior design!
Midnight Music: This one came off the record shelf! 1957 big band jazz courtesy of Count Basie:
Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.