On Tuesday, March 9, the UFC held a conference call featuring the main event fighters that will compete on the UFC’s first ever Versus card. Jon “Bones” Jones and Brandon “The Truth” Vera will face each other on March 21 at the 1stBank Center in Broomfield, Colo.

UFC call with Brandon Vera and Jon Jones
[podcast]http://media.ufc.tv/media/cms/UFConVersusConferenceCall.mp3[/podcast]

Both Vera and Jones fielded questions from the media on Tuesday’s call about numerous topics. Here are a few subjects discussed:

  • Jones was asked, because of his large frame, would he ever consider going up to heavyweight in the future. He said he definitely would consider that as an option in the future.
  • Brandon Vera sees a lot of himself in Jones. In fact on the Countdown show, Joe Rogan posed the question, “How will Brandon Vera deal with facing a younger version of himself?”
  • Vera said all in all the only weakness they can really find in Jones is his inexperience. They has to be a hard pill to swallow.
  • Vera admitted it is hard to find someone who can replicated Jones’ style in training. He did say they have been using Dominick Cruz to try and replicate  the footwork of Jones, and to work on odd angles.
  • Brandon feels he won the fight against Couture.
  • Vera is training in Big Bear which is a quarter mile higher than Denver, where he will fight Jones. He went down to sea level to train for a day to see if he could tell the difference, and he said doing that made him a real believer in altitude training.
  • Jones, who is training in Albuquerque, does not feel cardio will be an issue. He has heard that Albuquerque is at a higher elevation than Denver but does not know that for sure. He said Greg Jackson knows what he’s doing.
  • Jones said the biggest thing he has gained by training with Greg Jackson’s camp is confidence. And also he is not dominating everyone like he was at his old gym, he has people that can push him.
  • Jones said that while Vera technically has more experience in the Octagon, he has never experienced fighting anyone close to what he brings to the table.

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