Charles Jourdain Chases Fourth Straight 135lb Win Against Chito Vera

Charles Jourdain wanted this over in July. The French-Canadian was booked to fight Marlon "Chito" Vera on July 18 in Oklahoma City, bank a fourth straight bantamweight win, and spend what's left of a short Quebec summer with his family. Instead the fight slid to September 19 at UFC 331 in Los Angeles, and Jourdain (18-8-1, 8 KO, 7 SUB) ended up running two camps for one opponent.

The upside: he's fighting outside Canada for the first time in two years, and the move from a Fight Night to a numbered pay-per-view card matters more than the postponement stings. Jourdain pointed to the spike in attention after beating Kron Gracie at UFC 288 versus the quieter reception for Canadian shows. His conclusion was blunt — the pay's the same either way, so he'll take a strong Canadian card too.

The Weight Finally Clicked

Jourdain is 3-0 since climbing to 135 pounds, most recently grinding out a unanimous decision over Kyler Phillips in Winnipeg in April. It was a useful win — Phillips owns victories over Song Yadong and Raoni Barcelos — but Jourdain wasn't happy with the version of himself that showed up. He said he under-performed and botched parts of the weight cut, carrying too much muscle that turned into dead weight in the grappling exchanges.

He's leaner now, closer to the limit, and reckons his body took two full years to become a genuine bantamweight. There's a silver lining to a scrappy three-round decision, too. His last two wins came fast, leaving little tape to study. A 15-minute battle with Phillips gave him plenty to reassess.

Across the cage stands a bantamweight problem with a proud résumé and a worrying present. Vera holds the most fights and most finishes in division history, but he's lost four straight dating back to his title rematch with Sean O'Malley at UFC 299. Jourdain isn't sure which Chito turns up — the slow-starting, hard-punching "Regular Chito," or the desperate do-or-die version he flagged in a recent Ariel Helwani interview.

That uncertainty is exactly why Jourdain says he feels relaxed. No adaptability this time, he insists — he's imposing his own style and forcing Vera to adjust. He expects Vera to rush in early and pay for it, invoking what he called the Davey Grant mistake: shooting or brawling into a fighter who's happy to answer with a flying knee to the face. Whether that read holds against a former title challenger with nothing left to lose is the whole point of Saturday night.