Losing to José Aldo was the best thing that could happen to Marlon Vera.
After handing Sean O’Malley the first and only loss of his career in August 2020, Vera was given a big opportunity against former champion Aldo at the end of the year. After rallying to win Round 2, Vera was held throughout Round 3, losing the fight via unanimous decision.
Vera (21-8-1 MMA, 15-7 UFC) says he made a costly mistake early in the final round and was able to learn valuable lessons from that loss.
“That loss hurt me a lot because watching on TV is something, but being there, like in the first round, I was calculating, I was trying to calculate his speed, I was trying to see his body shots,” Vera told Kevin Iola. “In the second round, I’m 100 percent confident that I won that round, and coming out of the second round, at the end of the second round, I was very tired and overwhelmed.
“I can feel his energy. He was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to lose again, man. I’m done,’ and I got so cocky and arrogant, and I made a childish mistake of running around the cage and throwing a punch for no reason. I don’t even fight like that. That cost me the fight.”
Since then, Vera has won five of his last six fights, including knockouts of former champions Frankie Edgar and Dominick Cruz. His streak led to his first career title shot, where he will face bantamweight champion O’Malley (17-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) again in the main event of UFC 299 on March 9 at the Kaseya Center in Miami.
“Losing like that really hurt,” Vera said. “I went to a dark place. I was hard on myself. It was depressing… That was 1,001 percent for me. I made the biggest mistake of my life, but it was also the best mistake of my life because it taught me a lot in the long run.
“That’s why you saw how my career developed because I thought: you have to be careful with everything at all times. It just taught me so many things. That loss, I would say it could be the best loss of my career, and I’m not an enemy. Why not (have that lesson) against a legend like Jose Aldo?”
For more information on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s UFC 299 event hub.
The story originally appeared on MMA Junkie
