Marlon Vera wasn’t supposed to be fighting at UFC Fight Night 103, then Bryan Caraway suffered an injury and he was called to replace him against Jimmie Rivera at the event.
Then, just a few days before the event, Rivera pulled out of the fight because he felt he would be a bully if he were to fight Vera on short notice. Vera isn’t to happy with the whole situation.
“It’s really confusing,” he said to Bloody Elbow. “I don’t understand why he picked me and then pulled out of the fight. It’s really crazy. I don’t know what to think of this guy. The only thing I know is this guy is not professional. You ask for the unranked guy and then you say that you want to fight the best of the best. And then you put an excuse that Dodson lost to (John) Lineker — but [Lineker]’s in the top three. ‘Oh, Dodson don’t fight nobody, he’s a 125-pounder.’ He’s not a 125-pounder, he fights at 135 pounds. Dodson is one of the guys who put the biggest challenge to Demetrious Johnson, the pound-for-pound king.”
A big reason that Vera is not a happy camper at the moment is due to the fact that Rivera dragged Vera’s daughter into the situation.
“He didn’t talk bad about me, but he put my daughter in this,” he said. “He brought a lot of things to this that he shouldn’t be bringing. I never talk about my opponents’ families when I’m fighting. I was really upset because he was talking about my daughter. You can say, ‘I will kick your ass, I will finish you.’ But you were talking about my daughter, and you really can’t do that. This guy said he teaches kids. I also teach kids in the gym. When I teach kids, I tell them that a real man keeps his word. To me, words mean more than a contract. This guy shouldn’t be teaching kids, because he’s not a professional. He’s not a real man. Every single fighter in the world wants to fight. You get a fight and the next day say, ‘I don’t want to fight.’ That’s proof you are not a real man.”
UFC Fight Night 103 takes place on Sunday, January 13 from the Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix, Arizona with Yair Rodriguez and BJ Penn headlining.
