Marlon Vera Apologizes For Illegal Strikes At UFC Fight Night Nashville

Marlon Vera competed on the preliminary card of UFC Fight Night Nashville, defeating Frankie Saenz by first round TKO.

A victorious Vera apparently landed some illegal strikes during the finish of the fight, which Vera is sorry for.

“Yes, I saw the replays; there were a couple I suppose in the back of the head,” Vera said after the event (via Fernanda Prates & Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie). “But same thing happened to my teammate, Alex Perez, when (Joseph) Benavidez dropped him. That’s the only place to hit when you’re in that place. So what I would do, like, leave the guy there, let him recover and tell the ref like, ‘Hey, I’m a super good guy, I cannot hit him.’ (Expletive) it, if the guy’s there, you just hit him. Because it’s either me or it’s him, you know? If I’m face down, where will you hit? Because his arms were next to his ear. There’s no way to hit around. So, yeah. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be a (expletive) or a bad athlete. The place where we’re there, I hit it there. But I’m pretty sure, if I’m not wrong, most of the punches were in the ear before he get to that spot when he was already sleeping. So, I’m sorry to my opponent. I don’t want to do that. I’m not a dirty fighter, that happened. I got the win. (Expletive) it.”

Saenz hasn’t filed an appeal yet to have the fight result overturned and it is unknown if the fighter plans on doing so in the future.

Vera doesn’t have another fight scheduled at the moment, but will stay ready for when the call does come.

“You’ll never see me fat,” Vera said. “I’m always running, doing something. The only time I’m out of shape is when something really bad happens to me or I can’t really train, but, either way, I’m always ready. Because, if you want to make it, you’ve got to be ready to take any chance, any phone call.”

The fighter is now in the midst of a three fight winning streak and he hasn’t been defeated in over a year.