UFC bantamweight Marlon Vera recently blasted his opponent Dominick Cruz’s style, declaring it “low level”. In an interview with The MMA Hour, Vera clarified his comments, admitting that he respects Cruz for his accomplishments, but refusing to back down on his earlier position.
“I respect, 1000 percent, him for what he did. I said this in the press conference: He made bantamweight cool. He was the name that brought up the bantamweights.
Marlon Vera Backtracks, Clarifies Cruz Criticism
When he was the champion and was fighting other people, he was fighting alright guys. He was a cool guy, making a name for the division, and I think [he’s] the reason there’s a big gap between 125 and 135 in terms of names.
Because he was the WEC champ, came to the UFC and got the belt. Even when he was injured over the years, no one forgot about it. He comes back, he did what he did against [Takeya] Mizugaki, which was f****** phenomenal, then again he broke f****** something, comes back and beats T.J. [Dillashaw]. That’s f****** amazing. But I can’t bring any of these emotions or respect once we’re fighting.”
Vera continued, offering a detailed stylistic analysis of what he saw as Dominick Cruz’s shortcomings.
“I’m going to explain a little bit when I say the low level thing. Talking about fighting technique, it doesn’t matter what your style is.
We’ve got a guy like Israel Adesanya, he’s very flashy, he’s very technical, but he has a real solid base. His technique is sharp as f***, but he’s really flashy.
With Dominick, the movement that he does, me and my coaches, we think that’s a low-level style to do MMA. It’s just our opinion. It’s not a fact, but maybe we prove it because of the way that we finished him.
But I wasn’t talking s*** like he sucks. I don’t think he sucks. It’s the movements we don’t think work for MMA, because there’s kicks, elbows, knees. There’s so much more you can run into. Yeah, you make a little trick, sure, but he’s not having a good base.
When I say good base, I mean proper fundamentals. Throw good combos, move well, move your feet correctly, instead of just doing crazy back and forth [movement].
It makes a little harder, but it’s not technical or correct for us. That’s an opinion. Yes, I said it like that and I mean, it just sounds a little f***** up, it sounds like I was talking s***.
I wasn’t talking s***. I do respect him. I have respect for him and I appreciate what he did, because without a guy like that, maybe bantamweight wouldn’t be what it is.”
Is Marlon Vera right, or has he missed something about Dominick Cruz’s fight game? Let us know in the comments.
