Top UFC bantamweight contender Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera has just dropped into Art of Jiu-Jitsu in order to train BJJ with one of the top young prospects in the sport, Cole Abate. Vera is one of the best MMA fighters on the planet in his weight class and currently sits just outside the top 5 of his division, holding an impressive 20-8-1 professional record. Vera has never been finished at any point in his MMA career and owns wins over some legends of the sport like Frankie Edgar and Dominick Cruz.
In fact Vera’s next fight is against another legend of the sport in Henry Cejudo, who recently made his return to professional MMA after nearly 3 years away of retirement from competition. Vera and Cejudo are set to meet at UFC 292 on August 19th, 2023 and the two men are currently preparing for the fight. This is where Cole Abate has come into it, as he’s been helping Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera prepare for the grappling aspect of the fight. There aren’t many grapplers on the planet who can give Vera the same high-level of training that Abate will be able to provide at that weight either.
Vera is a solid grappler in his own right and has registered 8 submission wins throughout his MMA career, including 4 in the UFC cage. Abate is a whole other level of course, not only because he’s a grappling specialist but also because he’s one of the best young competitors in the sport. In fact, Abate was promoted to brown belt at the beginning of the year after winning the IBJJF European Championship and he’s already found success at that level too. He became the IBJJF brown belt world champion shortly afterward, and has won several matches against adult black belt competitors even before that.
Cole Abate announced the news that he had been training BJJ with Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera as part of his preparation for the upcoming Henry Cejudo fight in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
