The truth about second winds

Filipino-American MMA star Brandon Vera beats Japanese challenger Hideki Sekine in the first round in the main event of ONE: Age of Domination Friday, Dec. 2, 2016 at Mall of Asia Arena. Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

Brandon “The Truth” Vera enters the cage and Filipino fight fans go wild, the din of their collective roar shaking the LCD crawler round the arena.

He connects with punches and signature kicks and the cheering jumps a decibel higher. By the time his opponent kisses the mat, the raving crowd has gone berserk.

Such is the charisma of the reigning ONE Championship heavyweight champion, the Filipino-American mixed martial arts stalwart who never fails to thank his Pinoy fans for embracing him as their very own.

“It’s amazing,” says Vera, who is fresh off his technical knockout of Japanese grappling expert Hideki “Shrek” Sekine before 20,000 fans at Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay. “The Philippines is just as much my home as the United States is, and I am truly blessed to be able to compete in front of all the Filipino fans.”

Vera made the first defense of his heavyweight title look easy. With a whirlwind of kicks and punches, he manhandled the wide-bodied, hitherto-undefeated Sekine, forcing the referee to stop the carnage three minutes and 11 seconds into the first round of the main event of “ONE Championship: Age of Domination.”

“The big-fight atmosphere here in Manila is incredible,” he gushes. “Filipino fight fans are a passionate bunch. This is an amazing country and we discover something new everyday.”

The striker from San Diego, California, whose father Ernesto traces his roots in Tagkawayan, Quezon, secured his championship belt in December last year by knocking out Taiwanese-Canadian Paul Cheng, also at MoA Arena. Exactly a year before that, he made his ONE Championship debut at the same venue and beat the lights out of the rugged Ukrainian grappler Igor Subora in the first round.

“The honor and prestige of being a world champion is something that I take very seriously,” says the muay thai and Brazilian jiujitsu expert. “I am proud to wear the One heavyweight world championship belt around my waist.”

But Vera’s career journey hasn’t been smooth and sweet. The 39-year-old was a familiar fixture in the United States-based Universal Fighting Championship (UFC) until his fortuitous move to ONE Championship. The shift gave his career a second wind and allowed him to fight his fights without being subjected to what he calls the “whims of an organization” that “did not give me respect.”

Setbacks

But before raising his record in the octagon to 15-7 overall, highlighted by 10 knockouts, Vera’s MMA journey was on a tailspin. Successive knockout defeats to Mauricio Rua in 2012 and Ben Rothwell in 2013 put Vera out of business in the more popular UFC.

The twin setbacks were devastating to The Alliance MMA fighter, who was born in Norfolk, Virginia, to an Italian mother he never knew. Seven years earlier, he seemed headed for stardom, winning his first eight fights from 2002, six of them by way of knockout and one by submission. That victorious run was capped by a knockout of Frank Mir in just 1:09 of the first round in UFC 65 in late 2006.

Inexplicably, though, Vera went on to drop five of his next eight bouts. His last defeat, via a first-round TKO, was dealt by Jon Jones who broke his face in three places with an elbow in 2010.

It was never the same again for Vera, who trained in Greco Roman wrestling in his early years in the US Air Force at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. On his return to the octagon in UFC 125 in January 2011 he grappled with an assortment of injuries and lost to the flamboyant Brazilian Thiago Silva by decision.

The UFC released Vera but rehired him after Silva flunked the post-fight drug test. The billion-dollar MMA outfit later declared the fight a no-contest.

Redemption came for Vera in 2011, when he defeated Eliot Marshall via unanimous decision in UFC 137, but consecutive losses to Rua and Rothwell eventually ended his eight-year partnership with the promotion.

Finding sanctuary in the Singapore-based One FC, the biggest fight outfit in Asia, barely a month after parting ways with the UFC, Vera again saw his career take off.

It has helped that he is now 3-0 in One FC. “My MMA career has had its ups and downs, highs and lows,” Vera says. “But I feel that right now, I’m the best that I have ever been. I’m in my prime.”

The jiujitsu black-belter now commands a huge following in the country. He has grown so popular that he is contemplating following in the footsteps of Manny Pacquiao—not as a boxer but as a senator. “I want to help people in the provinces,” says the self-confessed Pacquiao fan whose one favorite dish is adobo. “I’m just following Pacquiao’s lead.”

Vera is working on an action film, “Buy Bust,” with Anne Curtis and says he might call it quits after two or three more fights.

While the desire to seek a seat in the Senate is on the horizon, Vera firmly believes that his real calling is to help people long after his retirement from the octagon.