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Mark Munoz says “I don’t want to fight Anderson (Silva) and Anderson doesn’t want to fight me”
By Zach Arnold | August 1, 2010
I saw some of his TV media interviews from earlier in the week, including his one on Comcast Sportsnet Bay Area, and he is so relaxed whenever he speaks.
The biggest newsworthy part of the interview is when he talks about training with Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida. He made it pretty clear that, should he get offered a title shot against Anderson Silva, that he will hedge his bets on it and Anderson would do the same. But first, he’s got to beat Yushin Okami on Sunday in San Diego.
Transcript in full-page view…
ARIEL HELWANI: “What’s your mindset going into this fight (against Yushin Okami)?”
MARK MUNOZ: “You know, just taking it like any other fight, man. This is the biggest fight of my career and Yushin is a Top 10 guy in the world and you know this is one step when I win, it’s going to be one step closer to what I want and that’s the top.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “The UFC has put you in there with some tough Middleweights since you dropped down to 185. Where would you say he ranks in terms of toughness of those opponents?”
MARK MUNOZ: “I think he’s very tough. He’s the toughest guy thus far, you know, and I mean… you go on a winning streak, you’re going to get a tougher guy every single time and Kendall (Grove), he was tough, too, you know, so… We had a barn-burner in Abu Dhabi and I’m not, you know, I’m looking for the same thing on Sunday night. Yushin, he’s very tough, been around the block a lot, a few times, and so he’s going to come back and he’s going to show his experience in the Octagon but I’m going to force my will on him.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “I want to continue on Okami here for a second. This is a guy who might not get a lot of attention because he doesn’t speak English and he hasn’t finished a lot of guys but he also never gets finished, I believe he’s only been finished once in his career and he’s fought almost 30 fights. Obviously you want to beat him but would it be a feather in your cap if you are able to finish him?”
MARK MUNOZ: “Oh, it would be, you know, and that’s what I do. I go in there and… I was given the nickname ‘The Filipino Wrecking Machine’ and it’s not really the nickname I wanted but they said it fits me really well and I look to finish every time I’m in the Octagon. I look every time, you know, I look for opportunities to, you know I don’t sit back and just wait, I go out there and I put the pressure on you and getting better with implementing my striking with my wrestling and now I’m getting to the point where I feel that I’m at my peak right now and so I’m looking forward to this fight.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “So with that mind, because he is so hard to finish, how do you prepare to have that mindset and to have the tools to be able to finish him? Because he doesn’t take a lot of risks and he doesn’t open himself up a lot, so you have to really pick your spots.”
MARK MUNOZ: “Yeah, you do, and in my training I’ve worked with just awesome guys. They’re big and strong, they’re real technical, and I go hard each and every split second of a round and I got new guys coming in on me every five minutes and every minute and a half and every two minutes sometimes. So, you know, I go hard every single time. I don’t coast. I don’t take it easy, you know, and he’s going to feel that. He’s going to feel the pressure. He’s going to feel the overwhelming, just relentless that I have, you know, and if he can put up with it, kudos to him. But he better be prepared for that because that’s where I’m going.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “You talk about your training partners and it’s much-publicized that you’ve been training with guys like Lyoto Machida and Anderson Silva at Black House. My question is, though, do you guys actually train there? Because all I see are videos of Anderson Silva dancing to Living in America and things like that? How cool is it to actually go to work every day and see those guys and have them help you?”
MARK MUNOZ: “It’s awesome, man. Those guys, they’re like family to me. And we together, it’s like we get together and it’s a family session, man, it’s like we talk to each other, we smile, we laugh, we train, we actually go really hard and then we teach each other, you know, it’s an awesome relationship that we do have and it’s awesome that Anderson has his camp here in California because he was in Brazil in his prior camps, you know, now he’s here in California, now it’s awesome to be able to train with him on a consistent basis and just draw from his knowledge and he’s drawing from mine, too. I’m trying to teach him as much as I can, he’s trying to teach me as much as he can, and it’s just an awesome relationship, man.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “But here’s the thing. though, you are 3-0 in the Middleweight division. You win on Sunday night, you’re 4-0. You might not be far off from the title discussion. What will you do if the UFC at least asks them to fight Anderson Silva? Will you take that fight?”
MARK MUNOZ: “Uh, you know, we’ll talk about that later, you know, we’ll cross that bridge when it comes, but… I don’t want to fight Anderson and Anderson doesn’t want to fight me, so we’ll cross that bridge when it comes and like I said, we’re a family and we’ll talk about it.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “OK, final point. We spoke to you after your fight in Abu Dhabi. It started off a little slow against Kendall Grove. What did you learn about yourself and what you need to do in the Octagon from that almost-loss but then turned into a nice comeback win?”
MARK MUNOZ: “I can’t start slow! You know, I got to go out there and I got to just go forward, moving, I can’t ever stand in front of somebody and I learned so much just so that you know like with Kendall he had an awesome game plan. He knew he had to move against me because if he stands still then I was going to shoot and take him down, so he was throwing out his jab out there and moving at the same time doing half circles, so he had an awesome game plan. But for me now, it’s you know I’ve implemented a lot and I’m going to start off fast, I’m going to make sure I get a good warm-up in, so I don’t have a slow first round because I don’t want to get caught by an uppercut again and have to hold on a single leg to get my bearings back. That’s not going to happen again, but once I got my bearings back instinct came along and I just go forward the way I do and I ended up on top and that’s what I do best.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “And, hey, if nothing else, at least this time you didn’t have to travel 20 hours to get your fight, right? It’s just like an hour away, right?”
MARK MUNOZ: “That’s right, just an hour away, didn’t have to be on an airplane and you know seeing the food and like, ah man, I can’t eat that, you know. But, yeah, it’s just an hour away, I got to work out at my gym, got to come here, work out again, and you know got to see my family, it’s awesome, man. It’s great.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I didn’t know Munoz trained at blackhouse.
Thats a fantastic opportunity for anybody!
I mostly remember him getting smoked by Hammill.
But checking out his record its perfectly clean other than that.
And that was his UFC introduction.
Thats not that unforgivable.
Shogun can say the same thing.
As a side note I found it interesting that tomas rios totally trashed munoz’ striking and standup. Yet 5 of his 9 career fights he’s won by strikes.
(I’m about as impressed with rios’ articles as he is with Munoz’ standup)
I’m really interested in watching this guy more closely today.
He was trashing his standup striking. Munoz has never won a fight due to standing strikes. All of his TKO wins you are referring to were via ground and pound.
Munoz gets overhyped every time he’s on a broadcast.
Well at least he get’s his wish now. His name should have never been brought up where title shots are concerned.