Salt Lake City, UT — C.J. Vergara found himself in a bad spot early in his catchweight fight with Vinicius Salvador at UFC 291 on Saturday night.
Salvador, who had come in heavy for the flyweight fight, added injury to insult when he poked Vergara in his left eye — leaving him unable to see.
“Couldn’t see. I’ve never been poked in the eye like that. I don’t know if he hit me, or if he poked me or what, but the lights went out completely,” Vergara (12-4-1) recalled after the fight. “I was telling my coaches, it was a weird situation because when the ref stopped it, he came up and asked me if I could see, and I couldn’t, but I lied. I was like ‘yeah I can see.'”
The ref asked if Vergara wanted him to call the doctor in, and Vergara didn’t respond quick enough. “The doctor came in and flashed the light in my eye, I couldn’t see anything at all. And I’m in a weird position because if I tell the doctor I can’t see, he’s probably going to stop the fight. So then I had to lie to him too! ‘Now I can see.’ ‘You sure?’ ‘100 percent.'”
Lying to the ref and doctor allowed the fight to continue, with Vergara winning a unanimous decision following fifteen minutes. He adjusted to losing vision in his eye by keeping his left hand higher, while trying “not to give those angles away.” The game plan didn’t change too much, he added. “It was something that I accepted. Vinicius throws everything, you guys saw, those angles that he throws from are so wild. So as long as you’re covering your bases with defense, you shouldn’t get caught with those wild shots.”
By the second round, Vergara’s vision had started to return. From there, excuse the pun, there was no looking back.
Following Friday’s weigh-in, where Salvador was two and a half pounds heavy, there was no question of Vergara turning down the fight.
“First of all, I’m not financially in a position to turn a fight down right now. I’m still building myself financially, one. Two, I mentioned this on my Instagram, I’m not going to throw rocks from the glass house that I’m standing inside of. I missed weight twice in the UFC, so I know what it’s like to push your body to that threshold, and your body says ‘I’m not doing this anymore.'”
“I empathize with him,” Vergara continued. “I know that he was probably dying Thursday morning, Thursday night/Friday morning. And I know the shame that goes into missing weight on such a massive card. How that felt for me, I imagine it felt the same for him.”
At times, the UFC 291 broadcast noted that the fight felt like a sparring match. That’s something Vergara felt as well.
“Yes, it did actually. And that’s funny that you say that, my coach said the exact same thing,” noted Vergara. “I had never been taunted that much in a fight, and I’ve never taunted that much in a fight back. I found myself doing that too. but something I needed to work on myself, for those that watched my fight in March, when I get clipped hard enough, there’s a blood boil that happens inside of me, where I lose composure and I only want to hurt you back. And I rage at that part of myself that refuses to be hurt. And I’m learning to grow as a martial artist, and not buy into that bait all the time.”
The fight with Salvador was “a great opportunity for me to come out here and show composure and poise. And when he started taunting, and when he clipped me with something, instead of falling into that firefight, putting myself in danger with a guy that’s throwing these wild looping punches that could put you out, just sit back and pick my shots. Of course I want the finish, I want the performance bonus, I want the knockout of the night, I want the highlight, all of that. We all do. However, I got a win, and I’m grateful for that.”
Watch the full UFC 291 post-fight press conference with C.J. Vergara above.
