Las Vegas, NV — Revenge might be a dish best served cold, but Marvin Vettori was fired up in the cage after getting a big win over Karl Roberson in the UFC on ESPN 10 co-main event.
The grudge match between the two is well known by now. The UFC played it up in promos for the fight, highlighting a hotel confrontation in May in which Vettori (15-4-1) berated Roberson for missing weight, then pulling out of their originally planned meeting at UFC Jacksonville.
The media attention saw the fight promoted to a co-main event. Yet incredibly, Roberson missed weight yet again, by an even wider margin. He was 4.5lbs over the middleweight limit for UFC on ESPN 10.
Vettori recounted his reaction to media outlets including Cageside Press at the UFC on ESPN 10 post-fight press conference.
“It’s funny, man. So I was I was making my medicals, right?” Vettori recalled. “And I know it’s always a question mark, his weight. So I’m looking up and I’m watching him while I do the medicals. And the doctor is asking me stuff and I’m like, no, what the f*ck, this guy again! The doctor was asking me like stay quiet.”
The doctor working on Vettori’s medicals and UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby both worked to calm him down. “I’m not gonna jump on anybody but yeah man. Then [Shelby] told me ‘yeah he f*cked up too many times.'”
“I don’t know where he should go to fight after if he can’t make weight,” the Italian born fighter added.
Vettori said he had a hunch Roberson would miss weight again. “All these months, so much uncertainty. I was like ‘man, how is he going to make weight? How’s he going to make weight? It’s impossible!'”
Not that it mattered in the end. “I didn’t care about [him] not making weight,” Vettori said. There wasn’t a moment he considered turning down the fight, in fact. “I don’t care. Just step into the cage. At least he did that, and he got his beating and on we go.”
Backstage, Vettori dedicated the bout to his grandfather, who recently passed away. “He had been sick for a long time. He was old, he was like 93 or 94. It was coming but just the fact that I couldn’t be there was was bad,” Vettori admitted. “[With] family it’s important, being around in hard times. And I mean, it was it was a long time coming in a sense, it wasn’t something out of nowhere but I wanted to be there. I couldn’t even be there for the funeral, couldn’t see him. That was what hurt me. In fact I wanted to dedicate this win to him.”
Watch the full UFC on ESPN 10 post-fight press conference with Marvin Vettori above!
