Exactly a year later, Vera is set to return to Mega Manila with all the marbles on the line. After months and months of beef building up between him and British striker Chi-Lewis Parry (6-0-1), ONE president Victor Cui and matchmaker Matt Hume booked the two big men in a grudge match in ONE’s year-end show, Spirit of Champions.
Not enough of a punch? Cui raised the stakes even higher by adding gold to the mix. The inaugural ONE Heavyweight Championship will be on the line in the match.
Vera, a 13 year MMA veteran, still feels both nervous and excited just thinking about competing in the country once more. “I’m Nervous and excited. Fighting in the Philippines is a double-edged sword, it’s really fine on one side but pretty big on the other. It’s a different feeling, I can’t explain it,” he said. “Even in fighting in your very first fighting event is not the same as fighting here in the Philippines. Even if you do it over and over again,” he excitedly added.
His opponent, Chi-Lewis Parry, is no slouch in the cage as well. A former basketball player standing at 6’9, Parry has since made a seemless transition to MMA in accumulating an unbeaten record, all by finishes. Vera knows this but sees one weakness in his opponent, “he’s a striker, muay thai. I’ve seen him take people down and he’s well-rounded. But he is slow, really slow.” He assessed that, “he’s faster in the first minute of the fight but after that he slows down alot.”
Vera though vows to bring 25-minutes of pain to his recent rival. “No. I don’t want round one. In a perfect world for me, I’m going to bring his ass to round four or five and just keep hitting and hitting him and not finishing the fight until the very end or until I feel he’s broken,” he vowed.
“I wanna break him bad. He’s been talking a lot of shit and he’s talking to much. I’m not that type of guy. I just want him to remember this ass beating.”
On December 11, either Vera or Parry will come out as the first-ever ONE World Heavyweight Champion. Currently, the ONE organization has a thin heavyweight division but the Filipino-American knows that there will be an influx of talent, not just in the heavyweight division, that will be with the organization in the coming years. “Yes and hell yes because there’s a lot of people who are wanting to leave their organizations and come to One. I get email and phone calls of fighters who are wanting to get to One,” the Truth confidently said.
“Yes there will be an influx of a lot more talent, world class talent, soon. It’s just time. It’s overdue and it’s really up to One how soon and how fast they want to grow. They’re at the right place and at the right time for the whole entire world market.”
“It’s coming,” he closed.
Brandon “The Truth” Vera is set to face Chi-Lewis “Chopper” Parry on December 11, 2015 at ONE: Spirit of Champions. The year-end show of ONE Championship will also feature bantamweight Mark “Mugen” Striegl and “The Hurricane” Ana Julaton as well. Spirit of Champions will be held at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.
