Marlon Vera Ends Losing Streak with TKO Victory over Charles Jourdain

Marlon “Chito” Vera walked into the cage carrying a four-fight losing streak and a lot of questions. He walked out with a stoppage win, a reminder of his cruelty in close, and a career suddenly pointing upwards again.

The Ecuadorian snapped his skid with a third-round TKO of Charles Jourdain, folding the Canadian with a vicious left hook at 2:02 of the final frame. The shot dropped Jourdain hard. As he hit the canvas, he waved the fight off himself, a rare and telling gesture from a man who had taken enough.

The message was simple: Vera’s not done yet.

A furious opening

From the first horn, the tempo was wild. Both men set a frantic pace, but this wasn’t sloppy brawling; it was sharp, technical violence.

Vera went to work with knees to the body, digging them in as Jourdain tried to answer with straight punches and hooks to the midsection. Twice in the opening round, “Chito” snatched a kick, dumped Jourdain to the mat, and made him think about the takedown threat. The first time he settled into closed guard. The second, he stood over Jourdain and hammered down punches.

They closed the round on the feet, Vera stalking, Jourdain circling. Right before the buzzer, Vera landed a nasty left hook that snapped Jourdain’s head around and hinted at what was coming.

Vera turns the screw

The second round belonged to Vera in a way that felt increasingly ominous for Jourdain.

Vera’s elbows in tight were mean, slicing through the clinch and forcing Jourdain to reset. Jourdain tried to answer with stabbing front kicks to the body, looking to slow Vera’s march and maybe steal back some momentum. Each time he extended a leg, though, he risked Vera’s counters.

The pressure finally told. Vera chopped low with a hard kick, then surged upstairs with a clean flurry – hooks and an uppercut that ripped through Jourdain’s guard and sent him to the canvas. Jourdain scrambled, ran to the fence, and tried to buy himself seconds, but Vera kept finding him with heavy, intermittent shots.

Out in the open, the pattern stayed the same: Vera walking him down, Jourdain forced to fight off the back foot. Another caught kick put Jourdain on the deck again, where Vera’s ground and pound turned spiteful and precise. Late in the round, a knee to the body folded Jourdain once more. He beat the count in MMA terms, but his body language was starting to betray him.

The finish – and a rare surrender

By the third, the damage had piled up. Vera could sense it.

He didn’t rush recklessly. He just kept walking Jourdain into trouble, cutting off the cage, edging closer, making the exchanges smaller and more dangerous. Then came the moment: a big, clean left hook that detonated on Jourdain’s head.

Jourdain dropped, and instinct usually tells a fighter to scramble, to grab a leg, to cling on. Instead, as he went down, he waved it off himself. No protest. No confusion. Just acceptance that Vera had broken through.

The referee stepped in. Vera’s four-fight losing streak was over in an instant.

A heavyweight record no one wants

Earlier on the card, another storyline took a darker turn. Tai Tuivasa dropped a split decision to Robelis Despaigne, with the judges scoring it 29-28, 28-29, 29-28 for the Cuban.

Tuivasa looked exhausted in the final round, eating a grazing head kick before chopping Despaigne to his knees with a well-timed low kick. They grappled along the fence again and again, Tuivasa searching for takedowns, Despaigne using overhooks to smother the attempts and mixing in enough punches to keep the referee at bay.

Despaigne even hit a series of awkward but effective throws, dumping Tuivasa to the mat and scoring with ground and pound in the closing minute. Tuivasa still found the energy to stand and sling punches in the dying seconds, but it wasn’t enough on the cards.

With that result, Tuivasa joined Tony Ferguson as the joint holder of an unwanted piece of UFC history: eight straight defeats.

A night framed by heavy news

All of it played out against a turbulent backdrop for the promotion.

Tom Aspinall, the Briton whose heavyweight reign was already scarred by misfortune, has vacated his title after a setback in his recovery from the serious eye injury he suffered against Ciryl Gane. Almost a year on from that night, Aspinall has been forced to let go of the belt he never truly had the chance to defend, while Gane now stands on the brink of being upgraded from interim champion to undisputed king.

At lightweight, Justin Gaethje is still dealing with the fallout from his June title win over Ilia Topuria at the White House – a fight that handed Topuria the first loss of his career. This week, Topuria suggested Gaethje may have tampered with his own gloves that night, a serious allegation that Gaethje has pushed back against.

On a card headlined by Joshua Van’s flyweight title defence against Alexandre Pantoja, the subplots are everywhere: champions stripped by injury, contenders mired in losing streaks, accusations swirling around a belt.

In the middle of it all, Marlon Vera did the one thing every fighter in trouble craves. He found a finish, slammed the door on doubt, and forced his name back into the conversation with a single, brutal left hand.