He may have started it in May when he was scheduled to face Daniel Santos at UFC 288 in Newark, New Jersey, but Santos was pulled on fight week due to injury, and Munoz had to regroup fast, especially with the bout rebooked for June 3 in Vegas. But when weigh-in day came around, “Kid Kvenbo” didn’t feel right.
“Basically, I had to go back into training right off the gate and that was a different experience for me,” he said. “I had to push myself to train, in a way, because it felt like my body was already done. I’m always training, I don’t miss days, but it just felt very weird to me. It didn’t feel the same. My body wasn’t in that flow state. We train to peak on fight week for the day of the fight, but it was probably my hardest weight cut I’ve ever had to do.”
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Munoz hit his mark at 136 pounds, but he didn’t look like the same fighter the next day, losing a three-round unanimous decision. Many would have called it a day after the bad weight cut, but guys like Munoz are cut from a different cloth.
“Every day is a battle, but then you just kind of go through it,” he admits. “I have learned and I know I am getting smarter with age, so if I’m hurt, I know when to lay back in training, and certain little things like that. But this last fight was a learning experience, so if that happens again, or something like that happened a teammate of mine, I would tell him my experience to help him better decide on his choice.”
