Yahoo: Vera suggests the UFC did him a favor with Jones matchup

[Clark Kent]

03-16-2010 05:35 PM:

The UFC is treating Versus well its debut card on the network With any luck, all the fighters will make it through the week in one piece to fight on Sunday night. It sets up some dynamite matchups at the top of the card with potential fireworks in store. The main event pits 22-year-old phenom Jon Jones against former phenom Brandon Vera. Vera, 32, has said all along Jones hasn't faced this level of competion. During his training camp in Big Bear, Ca., he went a step further.

"The UFC did me right on this one. I'm very excited to be fighting Jon Jones. He's a great fighter, but he's never been hit. Things change once that happens," told MMA photographer/blogger Tracy Lee.

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In her Versus blog, Lee does a nice job of capturing a day of training with Vera and his camp. The Filipino-American took things to a new level by moving part of his camp out of San Diego into the mountains.

"It was a necessity because of the altitude that we are fighting at and, Jon [Jones] is training in Albuquerque which is at a high elevation. Not all of the guys were here the whole time though, and tell you the truth, the weather was really bad at the beginning of my camp so I really thought I wasn't going to have anyone up here. There was snow everywhere and I needed chains on my truck for weeks. I took care of the house and all the food; I feel fortunate to have had as many guys up here as I have."

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Vera was joined by fellow UFC fighters Phil Davis, Joey Beltran and Shannon Gugerty (also fighting this weekend on the UFC on Versus card) along with trainer Eric Del Fierro.



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Cagewriter is an MMA blog edited by Steve Cofield.