With UFC 299 simply days away, an increasing number of fighters are weighing in on the principle occasion rematch between bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley and Marlon Vera. A type of breaking down he matchup and revealing their decide was former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker.
Vera (23-8-1) is ranked fifth within the division however holds a win over O’Malley. “Chito” stopped O’Malley within the first spherical of their UFC 254 bout again in August 2020. It is a loss O’Malley (17-1, 1 NC) needs to avenge.
“I’m so unsure as a result of I do imagine his goes to be a struggle that’s dictated by who turns up,” Whittaker stated on the MMArcade podcast. “It’s so exhausting to place a pin on. I’ll say, although, as a betting man, if I needed to favor somebody, I will favor Sean O’Malley.”
“Virtually each one in all his fights I put him down as my decide as a result of he has an uncanny option to discover chins. He has impeccable timing and accuracy with these photographs which have the ability to change folks off. He is so exhausting to get a learn on due to his motion, his stance switching, and his spacing is close to good,” Whittaker continued.
Whereas Whittaker could also be favoring O’Malley, he was fast to level out that Vera might win. He is already crushed O’Malley as soon as.
“As we noticed of their first struggle, in case you’re a canine and also you make it a canine struggle and also you make it aggressive and violent, Vera is there for that. Vera could be very a lot there for that sort of struggle,” Whittaker stated. “If Sean would not have as a lot success to find the chin, or doing the injury and incomes the respect he must maintain that area the place he can form of play within the vary that he needs, he not going to have quite a lot of enjoyable as a result of Vera – You’ll be able to see it in Vera’s eyes. You’ll be able to see it in the way in which he fights – He is a canine. He’ll get in there and he needs violence.”
“I might favor Sean. He is my decide for this struggle however I can very a lot see Vera simply being a canine. Very similar to the Petr Yan struggle, it changing into a a lot nearer and more durable struggle than Sean is used to. And over 5 rounds, I do not know what that appears like,” Whittaker stated.
