Marlon Vera Criticizes Dominick Cruz’s Style: ‘Not The Best Style For MMA’
Marlon Vera had Dominick Cruz‘s number at UFC Fight Night: San Diego, buying his time to land the perfect strike.
Vera was out struck in most of the fight, but every time he landed a strike, he would sit Cruz down. He dropped Cruz three times in the fight, and the last head kick he landed put Cruz’s light out. Cruz’s awkward technique and footwork, makes it hard to hit him, but ‘Chito’ timed his kick perfectly. Cruz faked to his left and went down and to the right, right into Vera’s kick.
Vera was very patient during the fight and let Cruz enter in with a flurry of punches, but never put himself in danger of being finished or even hurt too bad. Vera’s game plan was to stay patient and land the knockout strike, much like he did in the Frankie Edgar fight.
“I was just being patient, I was taking my time,” Vera said in the post-fight press conferences. “I dropped him in the first round, and when I dropped him I didn’t go crazy. I didn’t try to chase the finish, I never chase the finish. I don’t have any problems standing in front of you and finding those openings.” (Transcribed by MMAFighting)
Marlon Vera also said that Cruz’s style isn’t the best for MMA
“Honestly, me and my team, we really think the way he fights is kind of very low level,” Vera said. “There’s no base, there’s no good stance, all that movement side to side — we told each other, ‘We have to kick this guy’s ass.’ But by saying that, you put a lot of pressure on yourself. I just believe that his style is not the best style for MMA. Maybe for boxing it can work better, but for MMA you’ve got way too many weapons going. What he does well, he mixes takedowns with that movement. That’s when he’s successful. But I was like, it’s going to be hard for him to take me down, so we were pretty confident, but we knew this fight wasn’t easy.”
The fight was a competitive fight up until the knockout, and Cruz was most likely winning on the cards before that. Although, it was evident that when Vera landed his strikes, they were doing more damage.
