Marlon Vera witnessed his stock skyrocket overnight with his win over Sean O’Malley at the UFC 252 headliner. While the attention came in one night, it took ‘Chito’ years to build himself as a fighter. He was so much in love with fighting that he would purposely get into fights with people. Contrary to expectations, he was on the losing end more often than not.

The Ecuadorian native, while talking to ESPN, detailed his love for fighting. The UFC bantamweight, who is on a six-fight divisional win-streak, reminisced about the time when he wasn’t a professional athlete. To satisfy his thirst for action he would indulge in fights by poking others. Even though he lost way more than he won, he still has no regrets about the same.

“I gotta be honest. Of those 1200 (street fights), I lost 1100 maybe,” he said.

“I would be in the club drinking with my friends. I would just bump somebody. My friend pushes me and then bump again. Then we scrap and I get a black eye. Everybody is like dude you’re losing every single fight. And then I’m like I just f***ing love fighting man,” Vera added.

If one-on-one wasn’t enough, ‘Chito’ would also be involved in a ten-on-ten, sort of a battle royal. All this fighting gained him a lot of notoriety. While his friends weren’t fans of his antics back then, they do see the silver lining out of it now. They have realized that what was important is that their friend loved fighting.

Marlon Vera finds himself similar to Jorge Masvidal

After his win over ‘Suger’, Vera credited part of his success to his immigrant mentality. Having a wife and two kids to take care of ensures that he stays motivated and shows up on training every day. Moreover, he said that his opponents can have as much hype around them as they want, but they can never defeat the dog inside him.

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As fas as street fights are concerned, one of the biggest current names that comes up is that of Jorge Masvidal. The Miami native has been involved in a number of backyard fights, some of which are properly documented as well.

Marlon Vera wonders if he was born in Miami in an alternate timeline, he would’ve very well fought alongside ‘Gamebred’.

“I actually love fighting. I wasn’t doing it because I was being a prick. I like to fight. In a different time if I was in Miami I would be with Jorge fighting people in backyards. That was my thing. Win, lose, or draw doesn’t matter. When a fight was coming up or going on there was a little happiness inside me. It’s crazy. I don’t even know where it came from,” Vera said.

Marlon’s win over O’Malley has put him in a position to have a shot at a top 10 contender at 135-pounds. As of now, he is taking all the right steps to capitalize on the biggest win of his professional career.