By defeating Vera, Bhullar ended the Filipino-American’s five-year championship-winning run.
Bhullar completely dominated in the second round of the fight. “It’s the first time in my entire career that I felt gassed in the first round,” Vera said in the postmatch interview. “I’m in shape, we’ve been training, we’ve been working with the best people in the world. This is new for me.”
A former wrestler, Bhullar had won the Commonwealth games gold medal in New Delhi back in 2010 and in 2012 in London he became the first Indian-origin freestyle wrestler to represent Canada at the Olympics.
After his wrestling career, when he won his UFC debut against Luis Enrigue Barbosa de Oliveira in UFC 215, he had become the first Indian origin fighter to win a UFC fight.
