While Marlon Vera was busy fighting Sean O’Malley for the UFC bantamweight title in Miami, someone was also busy robbing his home in Irvine, California.
Marlon Vera got a double-black eye last weekend. Not only did the Ecuadorian MMA fighter lose to Sean O’Malley in the main event of UFC 299 at the Kaseya Center in Miami, but Vera also lost personal belongings when a thief broke into his residence two thousand miles away in California.
Chito himself revealed the bad news in an Instagram post where he vowed to find the perpetrator.
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Vera’s wife, Maria Paulina Escobar, later confirmed that the couple lost several material things in the incident:
“The context is last night there was a robbery. They broke into our house. Though they are material things, they are things that have been bought with a lot of effort and hard work. But hey, these types of things happen and the truth is, tonight will be a good one. Tonight, the gold belt (as Eli calls it) will be ours. God with us and to the person who did it. I really hope he needed the money for something important. Much love.”
Actually, the Veras found out about the break-in during the night of the fight. And despite the incident, Chito was still determined to take the bantamweight belt away from O’Malley. But he just didn’t have it that night. O’Malley exacted revenge on Vera by delivering a masterclass performance that saw him retain the UFC bantamweight belt via a wide unanimous decision with scores of 50-45, 50-45, and 50-44.
Four years ago, Vera dealt O’Malley his first and only career defeat at UFC 252 when his leg kick caused O’Malley to suffer a drop foot which led to a knockout. Suga has always maintained that the loss was a fluke and last weekend, he drove home a point by dominating Vera.
Suga outlanded Chito 230-89 in significant strikes landed. The difference of 141 significant strikes marked the fourth-largest strike differential in a UFC world title fight. O’Malley also landed a vicious knee to Vera’s head in Round 2. Although Chito didn’t go down, Sean said he felt ‘something break’ in Vera’s face when he hit him with the knee.
Chito has yet to speak about the injuries he suffered in the fight, if any. However, that “something” wasn’t the only break that Vera suffered as it turns out that someone also broke into his house.
Vera is still on the mend after a very tough fight. But as he said in his Instagram post, he’s going to find the guy who did it. And he better hope that Chito isn’t like Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills character in the movie Taken who always found the perpetrator and made him pay. Because like Bryan Mills, Marlon Vera is a very dangerous man even without a weapon.