Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera is primed and ready to go for his upcoming bout at UFC 268: Usman vs. Covington 2.
During a recent appearance on Michael Bisping’s Believe You Me podcast, Chito, gave fans an update on how training camp is going ahead of his upcoming fight against Frankie Edgar.
With UFC 268 being just over two-weeks away, Vera, reported that this is his last week of hard sparring.
Here’s what he had to say regarding training camp and his approach leading into the fight.
“I believe this is my last hard week,” said Vera. “This is the last week that I’m going to go live (sparring), and even this week I’m going to be taking care of myself during sparring. I’m not going to go crazy.”
“I already know my eyes are sharp. My gas tank, I can give gas to people if I want, but I don’t need to prove anything to myself anymore. I just need to keep my mind in the right space.”
“Right now, I’m ready to go. I’m just going to stay sharp. I feel when people get hurt it’s because they’re trying so hard until the last minute to convince themselves they are ready. It takes confidence to say, ‘fuck I’m ready to go’ and just step back from the hard wrestling and the hard sparring. Like, I’m going to grapple a couple rounds this week. I’m definitely going to spar a couple rounds this week. But mentally, no. I don’t need to go crazy. I don’t need to go prove a point and win every single round. Just be sharp. Just work on little things I want to do to Frankie and go from there.”
Vera (19-7-1 MMA, 11-6 UFC) is 7-2 in his last nine fights and is coming off a unanimous decision victory over Davey Grant that took place this past June. Vera has taken a significant step up in competition over the last 18 months, and his fight against Edgar is no different.
Chito has gone 2-2 since making his step up in competition so he likely needs to make a statement against Edgar to prove he belongs in the top of the bantamweight division for good.
Edgar (24-9-1 MMA, 19-9-1 UFC) is 4-5 in his last nine, and is coming off a knockout loss to Corey Sandhagen that came by way of flying knee in the first round in February of this year. However, Edgar has made a career of facing and defeating top competition since he joined the UFC back in 2007. If he can get the job done, this would be a big win against a hungry contender.
