Dominick Cruz UFC 299 Breakdown: Sean O’Malley vs. Marlon Vera | ESPN MMA Dominick Cruz gives his breakdown for the …
I’m Dominick Cruz we got Carl gibart here he’s going to be Vera and I’m going to be Ali so what makes this fight happen is you’re looking number six versus number one why is this happening with the lineup at 135 well one these fight this fight already happened and the rematch needs to happen two we saw that Ali lost the fight in the first two minutes of their fight so you’re kind of like H was that real was it a fluke because you saw Ali open the fight out with C kicks and blast Vera’s legs in the beginning of the fight and really have all over the place on skates ooh heavy low kick and all it took was coming to a southpaw stance Vera coming to a southpaw stance and he blasted the calf one time and after that you saw Ali step back and his his calf muscle was already shut down first two minutes of the fight and so for the rest of the fight Al Ali’s ankle’s given out and he’s falling in the middle of the fight trying to run from Vera while he’s injured so we want to see this fight because of that partially but also because they both stand there in the pocket and they’re willing to trade we’re not going to see guys look for takedowns in this fight Vera doesn’t shoot for takedowns and if anybody’s going to shoot I think we’re going to see how Mali try to time double legs on Vera because he’s susceptible for them take down nice take down so a few of the weapons that you’re going to see how Ali in this that makes him so tricky is he’s good at backing up and he can do it with his hands down cuz he’s always faking and you saw that if he can get you biting on his faints he can stop the pressure and this is what Ali does so well mix with the lateral movement he keeps his feet moving all the time and then what he does he’ll drop his hands so you don’t know if his hands are coming over under hooked over the top like he can mix them all together oh Al so potent now beautiful spinning kick ls’s always looking for what we call an open stance here and let me explain to you what an open stance is open stance is where we’re both facing the back back leg of each other so he’s facing my back leg and I’m facing his back leg closed stance is when our knees close together and now neither of us are facing the back leg so I can block this leg much easier on this side then I can block this long strong leg on the back side because it it’s got so much more space to create power so what Ali likes is this extra space one he’s always got a hide advantage and he does against ver as well two he likes his hand fight with his long arms and three from here he can usually hit with his hands from here with his legs from here oh I cannot believe he’s still standing oh and a follow up left hand it’s going to be a Non-Stop stance motion fight hand fight if Vera switches I think you’re going to see Ali switch and it and vice versa when you’re going to see Ali this is going to be the battle Vera is going to be trying to adjust the stance too because both these guys are looking for holes on one another from switching stance so it’s really going to come down to who’s got the better defense in each stance and who can drive who back we saw Vera was able to drive Ali back after that cap kick can he get that early go or not and last but definitely not least Vera tends to start slow in his fights for him to have a good Edge in this fight I think he’s got to start this fight very fast that first round he’s going to want to win it he’s going to want to come out heavy he’s going to want to pour on the pressure early start blasting the legs of Ali early and get that respect and show Ali this was not a fluke in the first fight [Applause] hug stops the suar show in round one we talking about Vera some of the weapons you’re going to see out of him are going to be this right hand he’s got a very good right hand and they both get get off on their Jabs really well he can just get out there and flow has so much experience and so much belief in himself that he just kind of lets things happen is going to want to keep him in a box same side attacks so start by reaching for the hands mixing the boxing he’s really good at he throws this kick you see Jon Jones do it where he’s trying to hyp extend the knee so you’ll see Vera he’ll do this to keep the range in the same side stance right here like this when we’re in an open stance Vera plays this and then he’ll try to he’s trying to hyperextend your knee Bo right there get it stuck so and then that really once that leg starts moving now he can connect his hands once you start getting tired and you start moving this leg cuz you don’t want that to chop that’s what he uses to really set up his next attack and another thing that you’re going to see out of Vera in this fight is the cap kicks obviously we saw in the first fight he wants this stance if we have the closed stance now Vera can land his jab and he can land the Cal kick anytime you see Ali try to lead with the jab he’s got this kick and that’s what we saw in the first fight the second Omi switched he switched and he waits for Ali to Circle this way and he was able to hurt him right there with that cap kick so you’re going to see that close stance this is always going to be the battle Vera looking for this Vera looking for this and then as the fight moves on because you never see Vera lean over he’s never leaning over his lead leg that’s what you saw with omali and Alaine Sterling is Sterling started to lean and that allowed for an [Applause] opening ver always wants to keep just this little bit of space because he doesn’t want to get into this kind of grappling match with you Vera likes to keep this space at all time he keeps you super hard shots one at a time but everything he throws is power under now to go on the round that’s him with that lead hook that lead hook got him we know you’re not going to see Vera take a shot very often and the reason is Barett takes pride in the fact that he can defend all the shots keep the forward momentum momentum and when you shoot for Vera that’s like okay they don’t want to strike with me for him it’s like a it’s like something in his head that says Ah they don’t want to strike with me but realistically he doesn’t care if you try to shoot on him because he’s going to look to hit his down block one of the thing that ver does when you try to shoot he gets his down block and he’s really good at getting to this position right here once he gets his arms in so he’ll get to here he’ll frame boom and then from here when you start coming up to your feet he’s he’s good at keeping this and looking for offense from here whether it be a knee whether it be an elbow on the way up whether it be right when you try to separate and you’re on the way out he hits you and finishes with a kick ver is really good at timing your shots and really meeting you in the middle and stop pulling you up to the upper body and not letting you stay low on his hips he’s going to pulling you back up stuffing the hip Boop and then really hitting you on the break oh that’s a good jot yeah mixing it up but nice job from ver to stay on the feet and a good knee and uput on the break from bar Ali’s got more power than a lot of guys in the division and you you’ve learned that by watching him he’s dropped multiple people that he’s fought he’s laid out all the people until he got into the top five he pretty much laid him out oh he tagged him with that right hand threw him down high Ki Oh oh now he goes high now short uppercut Techo covers up that’s shot col this is really a a good favorable matchup stylistically in the first two rounds I believe for Ali because of the way that he lands and his speed and how fast he is and the way that he can pull you into traps side to side his footwork the fact that he switches stance whereas Vera doesn’t have as much footwork and also let’s not forget Vera tends to start slow we’re talking about habits we’re not talking about actual facts these are habits that he’s shown he tends to start slow a lot of rounds we saw sometimes versus me sometimes vers Rob font Vera sometimes starts a little slow and then he ends the fight very strong he was looking for Ali starts the fight very fast and sometimes slows down in the rest of the fight so the real question is who’s going to get started first is omali going to get started first and get ahead in the early rounds or is ver going to make the adjustment from their first fight he started very fast in that first fight that they had and he was able to get omali out of there immediately I think we’re going to see that at a Vera again I think he’s going to come a lot faster in this first round than he has in past fights and he’s really going to bring it to Ali early because you can’t give omali the early rounds with his power