Marlon Vera derails the hype train, ends the “Suga Show” early

The UFC’s fastest rising star hit a roadblock as Marlon Vera became the first fighter to defeat the undefeated prospect, O’Malley. The build up to the fight was very intense between both fighters but Marlon doesn’t hold any particular animosity towards his opponent.

O’Malley suffered an injury in the first round, Vera capitalized on the leg injury and finished the fight with vicious ground-and-pound.

Referee Herb Dean stopped the fight and O’Malley remained on his back holding his leg, in obvious pain.

The O’Malley corner protested the stoppage but Vera didn’t have an issue with the stoppage.

Photos: Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

“The guy was snoring,” Vera said of O’Malley at the UFC 252 post-fight press conference. “When I landed the second elbow, he was making noises, he was out. And then when Herb Dean got in the middle, you could see [O’Malley’s] head bounce back. I see his corner saying, ‘No, that was too early.’ We make eye contact and I was like, ‘You know that sh*t wasn’t early,’ and the guy was pretty quiet all of a sudden.

“That guy was talking sh*t while we were getting ready to walk to the cage. He was yelling, ‘He’s slow.’ It’s like, dude, it’s a fu**ing fight, if you want to try to get in my head, you’ve got to try harder than that. So I was just like, the only way to make you pay is fu**ing your kid up.”

The promotion leading up to the fight featured O’Malley in a hype video being compared to some of the best athletes in the world.

“When it’s about fighting, those things don’t bother me,” Vera said. “You’ve got to beat those guys in the way I did in order to get what they had. I’m not a guy that I’m chasing promotion or Instagram followers. All that sh*t came by fu**ing people up and that’s why I’m here.”

Vera took credit for O’Malley’s injury stating he hit him with a “hard calf kick” that he landed early in the fight.

“I believe I’m a solid top-10,” Vera said. “I’ve been making damage in the division. What happened in the last fight got me pretty upset, got me pretty angry, and actually made me do what I did tonight. I wasn’t happy. I was pushing myself a little harder. I was being hard on me. I don’t give myself vacation, I don’t give myself cheat days. I was like, it’s time to dig deep and that’s when I find myself even better. I came to this fight with a mission. I cannot let this happen again in my life.

“That was terrible. They take half of my check, they cut a pretty sweet winning streak, which—I’m at seven right now, I don’t care what they say, I’m on [a seven-fight] winning streak.”