Brandon Vera Could Earn a UFC Title Shot By Beating Shogun Rua this Weekend

Let me tell you about Brandon Vera. On November 18, 2006, Brandon Vera officially became the future of the UFC. That night he destroyed former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir to improve to 8-0 as a professional fighter. 7 of his 8 fights had ended with a stoppage and he had never seen the third round of a fight. You can watch Vera’s quick destruction of Mir for free at UFC.com. It’s quick. I’ll wait.

Pretty bad ass, right? I was the captain of the Vera hype train. His nickname, “The Truth,” was in fact, the truth. Vera was the original Jon Jones. He was the guy who was supposed to be a champion in two weightclasses. Then he had a contract dispute with the UFC that kept him out of the octagon for 11 months. When he returned to fight Tim Sylvia, he got pushed against the cage for 3 rounds. At the time I blamed Sylvia for just being too damn big. If Vera got a little room, he’d go back to destroying fools.

That was not the case. Vera suffered what I remember was a controversial stoppage to Fabricio Werdum in his next fight. With that, Vera has spent the last 5  years being generally disappointing. Starting with the Sylvia loss, he went on a 5-5 streak that saw one loss changed to a no contest because Thiago Silva provided a fake urine sample. The one time he stopped an opponent, he kicked Mike Patt in the legs until he couldn’t walk. It was not spectacular. If Silva had not provided false urine, Vera would have been released by the UFC. Instead, he got another fight and beat Eliott Marshall. Yes, THE Eliott Marshall.

Now, thanks to injuries to Shogun, Vera, Thiago Silva, and James Te-Huna, Vera has earned himself a headlining fight against Shogun. The injury bug loves to fux with the UFC. And for some reason, the winner has been granted a title shot against the winner of the Dan Henderson – Jon Jones fight. (Spoiler alert: It’s going to be Jon Jones.)

The crazy part of this is that Jones has already destroyed both Vera and Shogun. Like, badly. Jones literally broke Vera’s face in 2010 in one of his last non-title fights. He was a bit more methodical against Shogun and Rua didn’t need facial reconstructive surgery when it was all said and done, but Jones left him a beaten man, crumpled against the cage.

I can’t imagine how far into the past and how many blogs you would have to comb through to find one that gives Vera so much as an honorable mention nod in the Light Heavyweight rankings. The idea that the UFC is even toying with the idea of putting Vera back in there with Jones is ludicrous. Even the idea of Vera fighting Dan Henderson if he beat Jones is absurd. I could go on and conjure a lot more fake outrage over the idea of Vera fighting for a title at this point in his career, but I think I’ll just root for him to actually win. It could be as funny as it is silly.