Preview: UFC on ESPN 41 ‘Vera vs. Cruz’

The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s long-overdue return to San Diego on Saturday at the Pechanga Resort took some late hits but still wound up with an entertaining main draw. It is also helped greatly by an excellent headliner, as former bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz looks to continue his latest—and unlikeliest—run through the division against the surging Marlon Vera, a man in search of his most significant win to date. Past that, it is all about the prospects. David Onama looks to keep up his active schedule with a tough test against Nate Landwehr in the co-main event, while strawweight newcomers Yazmin Jauregui and Iasmin Lucindo clash in a stellar pairing of two of the division’s brightest young talents. Otherwise, there are some fights that could go either way from a watchability standpoint, but as is typically the case, everything is well-matched and should help sort out some things.

Now to the UFC on ESPN 41 “Vera vs. Cruz” preview:

Bantamweights

#5 BW | Marlon Vera (19-7-1, 13-6 UFC) vs. #8 BW | Dominick Cruz (24-3, 7-2 UFC)

ODDS: Vera (-210), Cruz (+180)

Can Cruz actually march his way back to a title fight? It has now been over a decade since Cruz tore his ACL training for a title defense against Urijah Faber, and “The Dominator” has seemingly been on the comeback trail for the entire time since. That first injury led to a nearly three-year layoff due to multiple ACL surgeries and a torn groin, during which Cruz was stripped of his bantamweight title. Upon his 2014 return against Takeya Mizugaki, there was interest as to how those injuries would affect the off-rhythm movement-heavy style that Cruz had essentially built from scratch. As it turned out, none of that was a factor. Cruz unleashed three years of pent-up rage and knocked out Mizugaki in straightforward fashion in about a minute, setting himself up as the next challenger for then-champion T.J. Dillashaw. Naturally, Cruz suffered another ACL tear, causing him to miss all of 2015 before returning to face Dillashaw for the title early in 2016. That was a rare year of health for Cruz, during which he was able to shockingly turn back the clock. He looked much like his old self and regained the title from Dillashaw via narrow decision before once again dispatching of his archrival Faber. After dropping his title to Cody Garbrandt, whose hand speed and timing was enough to counter Cruz’s blitzes of offense, he suffered another spate of injuries—this time to his upper body—that kept him out of action for roughly three and a half years. When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020 and the UFC decided to start running cards, Cruz wound up as the most viable option to try and gain back his belt against then-champ Henry Cejudo, though it seemed like a poor stylistic matchup for someone who figured to be rusty. Indeed, Cejudo was mostly able to overwhelm the former champion ahead of a second-round stoppage. That figured to cap Cruz’s days as a title contender, but 2021 somehow saw him make a march back up the ranks. As inefficient and weird as Cruz’s style can be at times, it was enough to throw off Casey Kenney and Pedro Munhoz, even if the former champion had to bite down and march through hell at points to put his stamp on the fight. So even in one of the UFC’s deepest and most diverse divisions, Cruz finds himself within a win or two of a title shot long after anyone would have expected he would be done. His next step comes against Vera.

There is an alternate universe where Vera does not even make it to his current eight-year tenure on the UFC roster. A sentimental favorite on the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter Latin America,” the Ecuadorian lost his first fight in the UFC against Marco Beltran and easily could have been cut right then. However, the UFC gave Vera another chance, and he made good with a submission win over Roman Salazar. From there, it has been off to the races. Primarily a grappling specialist early in his career, Vera has slowly built out an effective striking game that—much like his grappling—is constructed around big moments of offense. Given that Vera seems to be among the most indestructible members of the UFC roster, he is more than willing to keep marching forward in the hopes of landing a knockout blow or simply winning a war of attrition. Against most of the lower levels of the UFC roster, Vera would normally find his way to a finish without much trouble, though he has dealt with some thinner margins since making it to contender status in the last few years. He was clearly on the losing end of a November bout against Frankie Edgar until he uncorked a brutal front kick for the knockout, and his April main event win over Rob Font saw Vera give up a lot of pace and control on his way to separating himself on the scorecards with the biggest strikes of the fight. It remains unclear if that attritional approach can work against Cruz, who probably leans more towards the Edgar side of things in terms of Vera’s recent big wins. Edgar found a surprising amount of success with a movement-heavy style and, most importantly, was able to take advantage of Vera’s suspect takedown defense. With Cruz’s strong wrestling always serving as the secret weapon that makes his herky-jerky striking style work, it is easy to see a scenario where Cruz can keep Vera on his toes—or, in a more literal sense, on his back—enough to coast out a win, particularly since he is a much more historically durable fighter than Edgar and is unlikely to give up the knockout late. On the other side of the equation, Vera is a much tougher challenge for Cruz than the former champion’s other two opponents during this most recent run. For one, Vera is Cruz’s longest opponent in a good while. Given how much of Cruz’s style depends on sniping at his opponents and moving at range, the whole thing may just fall apart if Vera can use his kick-heavy game to hit the Alliance MMA mainstay from a distance. On top of that, Vera does have a propensity towards breaking out some powerful leg kicks, which figures to slow Cruz’s striking down over the course of the fight. Beyond that, there are the worries that Cruz’s injury history means his lower body cannot even withstand such a beating. If Cruz ever feels the need to simply bite down and charge forward as he has at times, Vera is about the last person you want to do that with, if only because of the Ecuadorian’s elite level of durability. In the end, the bet is that Cruz can rely on his wrestling as a safety valve to eke out this win, even if there figures to be plenty of rough going along the way. A lot of this hinges on his durability, and his getting clipped early against Munhoz does raise some concern that Vera can find a fight-ending blow at some point given 25 minutes. This is an excellent pairing. The pick is Cruz via decision.

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Onama vs. Landwehr
Jauregui vs. Lucindo
Murzakanov vs. Clark
Calvillo vs. Nunes
Silva vs. Meerschaert
The Prelims