As impressed as Sean O’Malley was by Cory Sandhagen, he also expected more from Marlon Vera at UFC on ESPN 43.
Vera (20-8-1 MMA, 14-7 UFC) dropped a split decision to Sandhagen (17-4 MMA, 10-3 UFC) in this past Saturday’s headliner in San Antonio. Vera was outstruck and taken down three times in the fight.
O’Malley’s coach and co-host, Tim Welch, suggested “Chito” looked off, but O’Malley disagreed.
“I think Cory just outclassed him,” O’Malley said on his Timbo Sugar Show podcast. “I do think the big cage – it’s like if you’re playing a basketball game and you’re like, ‘Well, let’s just play half-court.’ That’s pretty much the difference between the small cage and the big cage. It’s 40 percent bigger, so it’s like a different playing ground you’re playing with. I think it would have favored ‘Chito’ a lot more in the smaller cage.
“I don’t think anything was wrong with ‘Chito.’ I think Cory’s that f*cking good, and that style beats ‘Chito.’ ‘Chito’s’ not very fast. He’s f*cking super good, super durable, well-rounded everywhere. Cory was focused for 25 minutes, did what he needed to do, wrestled more than I thought he would.”
(Editor’s note: The difference between the 25-foot “small cage” in the UFC, used in smaller venues and the UFC Apex, and its standard 30-foot “big cage” actually is 20 percent, not 40 percent.)
O’Malley, whose lone loss came to Vera in 2020, expected Vera to be more active off of his back.
“You know what surprised me a lot was the first two rounds when Cory took ‘Chito’ down,” O’Malley said. “It didn’t look like he was trying to get his guard back, didn’t look like he was trying to wrist control and get up. I was super surprised at the lack of skills – I don’t think he’s lacking those skills, but he wasn’t using them. He just laid on his back. … ‘Chito’ looked like he was just giving up that position.”
O’Malley currently is the No. 1 contender at bantamweight as waiting for the winner of bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling and Henry Cejudo, who throw down in the UFC 288 headliner May 6.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 43.