“No smoothie bar,” he laughs. “But they have a cafe on the bottom.”
Munoz, 29, is in good spirits these days as he awaits his fourth trip to the Octagon. It’s been an up and down journey thus far, with an impressive submission of Jamey Simmons surrounded by the first two losses of his pro career against Nate Maness and Tony Gravely. The June loss to Gravely particularly stings, since he got caught and stopped in 68 seconds, before he could even get into the fight.
But that’s MMA and the perils of fighting with four-ounce gloves. One good shot, and that could be the end of a fighter’s night.
MORE FIGHT NIGHT: Fight By Fight Preview | Fighters On The Rise
“When it happened, I was pissed off,” Munoz said of the Gravely bout. “It was like a weird thing – it was one of those shots I didn’t see, but I walked into it. It wasn’t really a hard shot, but if you hit the right spot, it doesn’t matter how hard it is. And it’s MMA – s**t happens. I remember seeing my opponent jumping around everywhere, and I was like, ‘Man, f**k that s**t.’ It’s one of those things – you go shoot somebody and if you don’t go check to make sure he’s dead, that guy’s gonna come back for you. I feel that’s what happened to me. I was shot, but I didn’t die, but I was still able to see what was going on. Now I’m back and I’m out for payback, in a sense.”
Not necessarily against Gravely, though he would like to run that one back, but against everyone in the bantamweight division. No, he’s not sitting in a dark room, brooding about a loss. Instead, he’s been making the trip back and forth across the border, getting the work in to make sure a night like June 4th doesn’t happen again.
