Marlon Vera returns to action this Saturday Night at UFC Fight Night Sao Paulo and his opponent is top ranked John Lineker.
Once his bout with Lineker in in the rear view mirror, the bantamweight fighter wants to settle unfinished business with Jimmie Rivera.
“I feel I match up great with both, and one of them (Jimmie Rivera) owes me one,” Vera said to MMA Junkie. “I want to make him pay.”
The rivalry between the two began this past January when Rivera refused to fight the lower ranked Vera at UFC Fight Night 103, stating that he didn’t want to bully the supposedly lesser skilled fighter.
Vera took things personally with Rivera after Rivera brought up the latter’s daughter during a back and forth between the two.
“He was talking too much,” Vera said. “He was saying things that don’t make sense. If he says he’s better than me, that doesn’t offend me at all. But he pulled my daughter into it, and he said he was a bully when he was a kid. But with that size, I don’t think he was a bully – I think he was the bullied one. I respect him as a person. As a fighter, I don’t respect him at all, because he wasn’t professional at all.”
UFC Fight Night Sao Paulo takes place on Saturday, October 28 from the Ibirapuera Gymnasium in Sao Paulo, Brazil with Lyoto Machida and Derek Brunson headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, which airs live on Fox Sports 1.
