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Filipino-American Brandon “The Truth” Vera is one of five current reigning Filipino world champions in Singapore-based martial arts promotion ONE Championship.
The 41-year old is the reigning ONE Heavyweight World Champion and is coming off a dominant title defense over Italian challenger Mauro Cerilli at ONE: CONQUEST OF CHAMPIONS last 23 November in Manila.
Being the longest-reigning among his fellow Filipino world champions, Vera was able to witness his compatriots succeed, and it was something that definitely gave him an immense sense of pride.
“To be a part of it, to be part of those five belts, to own almost half in the world, I am very proud of that fact,” he said.
“There’s five world championships here in the Philippines, that is a huge deal. That should be on front page, that should be on every news report,” Vera added. “We are a very small country compared to the rest of the world, and we own five belts in an organization that has eleven weight [classes]. We have almost half of their belts in our homeland.”
The four other Filipino world champions - Eduard Folayang, Kevin Belingon, Geje Eustaquio, and Joshua Pacio - all hail from famed Benguet-based mixed martial arts stable Team Lakay.
For Vera however, the five world championships isn’t quite enough. “The Truth” would like to see all the ONE world championships reside in the Philippines.
“Let’s get all of them, because I know we can. We can do it. That’s the goal, that’s my goal for the Philippines.”
Like Team Lakay, Vera would also like to help develop Filipino world champions, and he plans to do that through his Alliance Training Center, which is set to become operational in the Philippines very soon.
“Alliance Training Center, it’s about 8,000 square feet, 192 parking spaces, that’s what I’m going to give back to the Philippines,” he shared.
Through Alliance, Vera said that aspiring Filipino martial artists will get the chance to have world-class training, something that very few gyms in the Philippines can offer.
“I’m going to give you a place where you can come train and get world class teaching. One of our partners will be allowing us to fly world class talent in and out, maybe every quarter. That’s a big deal because most gyms don’t get to do that around the world,” he added.
Alliance has produced some of the best mixed martial artists in the world, including world champions like Dominick Cruz, Phil Davis, and Michael Chandler.
Vera hopes to be able to do the same in the Philippines, as he aims for Filipino supremacy in ONE Championship.
“I’m very excited and I’m very ecstatic to give that back. I want to see it grow,” Vera concluded.
