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Brandon Vera: My fight w/ Shogun will change UFC history … because I care now
By Zach Arnold | July 31, 2012
BAS RUTTEN: “What did you change in your training, Brandon?”
BRANDON VERA: “Uh, what did I change?”
BAS RUTTEN: “Yes.”
BRANDON VERA: “Um… I brought back in all my Muay Thai coaches. I brought back in all my training partners from all across the country, the world. Gustafsson came in on a sparing day and gave me some. Everybody has been here and started showing up to support for this. Everybody understands how big this opportunity is, what this could mean for myself, my career, and UFC and the history of MMA and, uh, everybody’s been supporting me 100%. What has changed I guess the most is my attitude towards training and what I should have been doing since day one.”
KENNY RICE: “What should you have been doing since day one that you haven’t been?”
BRANDON VERA: “I should have been caring, man. I should have understood the fact that I fight in the UFC where the greatest fighters from around the world congregate to compete for the number one spot and I didn’t treat it like that for a long time. I didn’t treat it like that at all. So… I understand where I’m at now, I understand.”
JOSH KOSCHECK: “It’s my first camp being away from San Jose and being away from training with you and everybody but there’s a substitute for it, you know, I get to train in my own gym, I get to stay at my own house at night.
“Starting a new gym in Fresno is a big step, you know, it’s a big risk. It’s a new beginning to my life and I feel like my career might have just got a little bit longer because I don’t have that stress of being in San Jose.”
JON FITCH: “So, the bridge is pretty much completely burnt?”
JOSH KOSCHECK: “The bridge over in San Jose is pretty much burnt, you know, and it’s nothing with anybody over there. There’s only one person… and we all know (who) that person is, Javier. You know, I just wasn’t happy, it wasn’t the place for me any more.”
“I could no longer train. I didn’t really care because I knew I was leaving San Jose. I’m done with this fucking guy. I’m done with being around… like… does the guy not know how much I’ve done for him and his gyms, like fighting for 8 years under that name? 8 years. And it’s like, not once he ever came up to me and said, ‘Kos, thank you for fighting under the gym.’ He never truly ever cared about coming to your fights until you were on TV, never truly cared about coming to my fights until I was fighting in the big fights because he wanted to build his own name off of us. Too much fame, too much TV, people change. I can say truly, Fitch, I’ve been the same from day one. Total d-i-c-k from day one. I say what I feel and if you don’t like it, tough shit, you know? He changed.
“I hope the gym burns to the ground. *laughs* Is that bad? Hopefully nobody’s in it but, just, well maybe one person, but… if it burns down, I’m cool. We’ll be good.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
It’s refreshing to see a change in attitude about Vera. He’s always come off as unjustifiably cocky, and it’s good to see him humbled.
It won’t last. He went through this “chang of character” a few years back too.
vera has a change every fight. the “old” brandon is always back whatever…
Yes, nice to see that Brandon is gonna train for real this time.
That’s what you have to tell yourself when you’ve tasted failure – I didn’t try hard enough last time.
I’m betting that he’ll miss the gains of X years of training hard.
His stroke of luck is that he’s facing Shogun, so if he’s willing to brawl, he’ll have his opportunities.
[…] Brandon Vera Ready to Alter History with Win Over Mauricio Rua at UFC on FOX 4 (FightOpinion.com) […]