UFC San Antonio Beforemath: Can Vera Put ‘The Sandman’ to Sleep?

We are in for a bittersweet treat this weekend. Either Marlon Vera’s four fight win streak will be snapped and his rise through the crowded bantamweight division will stop, or Cory Sandhagen will drop to 3-4 since 2020. With both of these fighters being so great, it will be a sad ending as one will be sent to the back of the line. So, who wins? That’s what we are here to postulate on with the UFC on ESPN 43 Beforemath.

“Chito” Vera: Career Performance

It is no secret that Vera is not a high-output fighter, but his shot selection has been very much on point for the past few years. While he does possess a great grappling toolkit, Vera has relied on his striking in his most recent run and it’s gotten him by just fine. But with “UFC San Antonio” presenting a new challenge, Vera will have to bring a different approach to this fight if he hopes to best the tricky Sandhagen.

Sandhagen is quick, fast and accurate, more so than most fighters Vera has come across with the exception of Jose Aldo, who absolutely schooled Vera in 2020. Vera will need to find ways to slow Sandhagen down and get the fight to a pace at which he is comfortable. Eating a million jabs like he did against Rob Font will not be the route to take in this fight.

To get this fight in a winnable position, Vera is going to have to slow down Sandhagen and bring the fight to his area. Vera is very good in the grappling department, and I’d like to see him utilize that more this fight. The first thing I’d like to see is Vera pressuring Sandhagen against the fence. Against the cage, Vera can slow down the squirrely Sandhagen and have several different opportunities.

The first thing Vera can look to do is get the fight to the ground. In his most recent fight against Davey Grant, we saw Vera apply pressure at the fence and reap the leg to get the fight to the ground. In the diagram above, (1) Vera has the body lock and has Grant pressed against the fence. He will wrap his right leg around Grant’s and (2) pull it out away from the fence. This gives Vera some room to push if need be and to turn Grant away from the cage to prevent the wall walk. (3) Vera then pulls Grant to him and use his body lock to guide Grant over the reaped leg and (4) down to the canvas for a takedown.

Vera will need to slow Sandhagen down and even get the takedown to show his best side this weekend, but wrestling isn’t his only path to victory. Sandhagen is very susceptible to the low kick. When he has fought fighters with good leg kicks, the bouts have been much closer and even resulted in Sandhagen losses. T.J. Dillashaw went 41-of-46 with leg kicks and Petr Yan was 22-of-24. Vera will want to go to there often, as he’s done in the past—though not at the clip or Dillashaw or Yan. Ratchet up the low leg kicks and Sandhagen will be more available to hit. This is especially true considering that Vera is a significantly harder kicker than Dillashaw and Yan.

Once Vera has Sandhagen compromised on the feet, and should he not be able to get to the ground, he can land some elbows in the clinch and even come off the clinch in the center of the cage. In the figure above, we are looking at Sandhagen’s most recent fight with Song Yadong. We see in the first frame (1) that Sandhagen was over-pursuing Song and throws a huge left hook. (2) Song dips under the hook and (3) pivots out to his right. Here, Song has two options. He’s created the angle to land a left hook or to change levels and grab a takedown. With the leg out of position, Song had position to get to the ground and this could be something Vera could utilize. But don’t sleep on Chito’s hands. Like Song, (4) the left hook is there and can give Vera a chance to land some damage on such a mobile opponent.

All in all, Vera will have to have a career performance this Saturday to overcome Sandhagen. Where he came up short against Jose Aldo, he will have to shine through. Inability to get Sandhagen to the ground will be the death of him and set him back from his goal of winning a world title.

Sandhagen: Eliminate the New Contenders

While we’re not getting my dream fight of Sandhagen vs. Sean O'Malley, the Vera fight is very compelling. Going into “UFC San Antonio,” he hasn’t been on the best streak. At 3-3 in his last six fights, Saturday night is a must win for Sandhagen.

The fight with Vera isn’t something where Sandhagen has to plan to his opponent. Vera naturally matches up in Sandhagen’s favor when it comes to style, but Vera tends to rise to the occasion and should Sandhagen have a bad night, he could see his title hopes vanish forever. At 30 years old and the recent run he’s on, he may never see the top of the heap of the crowded and ever-talented bantamweight division.

Sandhagen needs to go out and fight his fight. Feints, spinning attacks, switching stances: Sandhagen can do it all and will need to against Vera, who just comes out to crack. Staying off the fence will be important too, bearing in mind what we discussed in the Vera section. Circling out and not moving laterally will have Sandhagen in good positions to land strikes on Vera and make him flinch at what he throws. For how that can come into effect we look at none other than the great Aldo.

Vera was quite outclassed against Aldo, and it was apparent by the second round. With impregnable takedown defense, Aldo forced Vera to strike with him. When that happened, Aldo teed off. He utilized the Ecuadorian’s mistakes to punish him. Vera was so befuddled that he found himself overreacting and that was just a snowball effect of Aldo taking advantage.

In our next diagram, we see Aldo take advantage of one of those mistakes. (1) Vera throws an oblique kick to the knee of Aldo to soften up the legs for a takedown. (Classic mistake when fighting Aldo.) Aldo shifts his knee to the right and fires off a right hand to the body. (2) Seeing the right hand come to him, Vera will drop his hands and turn his body to the left and hide from Aldo. The only problem with this is the fact that the left hook to the body is probably Jose Aldo’s favorite punch and (3) he throws it landing clean. Vera’s hands instinctually drop to cover the punch and that opens up the right hook which, being the maestro he is, Aldo throws and lands.

Once Sandhagen starts to land clean on Vera, he can punish him even more with his tendency to over react to punches he deems problematic enough. Sandhagen has always been good in this department and will likely use this approach as game plan No. 1. Should Vera not be able to get Sandhagen to the fence, I look for a lot of this to make Vera have another long, uncomfortable night.

Then there is the explosiveness of Sandhagen, another area of advantage. Sandhagen is very, very athletic and he’s used that in the past for some spectacular finishes. One such finish can be seen above with his sub-minute knockout of Frankie Edgar. Sandhagen (1) circled the ring, leading Edgar on to follow him. Edgar, instead of cutting the cage off, was trapped into being kited around and once he felt he had Edgar hook, line and sinker, Sandhagen (2) stopped. Edgar, sensing his opponent is finally stationary, marches in. In orthodox stance, Sandhagen will hop off his lead foot and throw the flying knee with his right. One small adjustment he makes that sets up the knee perfectly is (3) a small shift to his right. After leading Edgar around to the left thus far, that small shift to the right centers him up perfectly for the flying knee.

(4) Edgar ends up eating Sandhagen’s knee just on the center line and it lands flush. This was set up by that small shift and Edgar recklessly coming in to eat the four course, flying knee meal served up by “The Sandman” himself.

Sandhagen will use this explosivity advantage this weekend and hope he doesn’t just get pushed into the fence and ground down by Vera. This fight is a must-win for Sandhagen. Bantamweight is the best it’s ever been, and a loss now would spell disaster.