Vera happy for Muñoz success, wants to do Pinoy edition of The Ultimate Fighter

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Like every other mixed martial artist out there, Filipino-American light heavyweight Brandon “The Truth” Vera wants to win a UFC title.

These days, though, middleweight Mark “The Filipino Wrecking Machine” Muñoz looks much closer to a title shot than Vera. But Vera doesn’t seem to mind one bit.

“Oh, it’s awesome. I love it, man,” said Vera about Muñoz’s success. “I told everybody a long time ago, when Mark first came on the scene, I told everybody he was going to be a beast and nobody believed me. Everybody was like ‘Yeah, right.’ Now everybody’s talking about Mark and I told you so.”

“His work ethic is awesome and he loves his family. Everybody’s like ‘What’s that got to do with MMA?’ If you see how Mark treats his family and spends time with his family, you can tell this is his number one driving, motivating factor to do well. It’s because of his family.”

“It’s an amazing thing to watch. Cause when he’s in the cage he’s an animal but when he’s with his daughters, he’s like a big baby. It’s awesome, you know. He turns into this other person, man.”

Vera, who was in town last week to attend the PXC 28 event, also expressed his desire to be involved in an international version of the reality show “The Ultimate Fighter” in the Philippines, if the long-rumored series ever pushes through.

“I’m super excited to make it happen, man,” he said. “I’m hoping that they do have a show here, ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ here in the Philippines. I would love to be involved with that, one way or form or another. I don’t care how.”

“You know they’re bringing BJ Penn out here to do a UFC tour. Jon Jones was slated to come here and do it but he’s fighting [Lyoto] Machida now. The UFC just keeps its name in [the Philippines] and you see how big the turnouts are every time you got someone coming from the UFC.”

Vera is not only supportive of his fellow countrymen, but also of his teammates from the Alliance Training Center in San Diego.

“We have a lot of guys,” said Vera. “I think there’s seven of us fighting from Alliance Training Center in the UFC.”

Among his teammates are current UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz and rising light heavyweight prospect Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis.

“We’ve actually been nominated for seven or eight awards for the MMA Awards this year in Las Vegas. Actually when I fly back to the States, I’m driving to San Diego from San Francisco and then flying to Las Vegas for the MMA Awards show.”

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