Mark Munoz: 'I want to prove to myself I can reach the top'
After his loss to Chris Weidman in 2012, UFC middleweight contender Mark Munoz fell into a deep depression. He had good reason to be upset.
He went into the bout on a four-fight win streak and hoped to earn a title shot with the win. Instead, Weidman stopped him, earned a title shot for himself, and his now the division's king.
The clean-living fighter isn't one to partake in drugs and alcohol, but he did try to drown his sorrows in good food, and put on a great deal of weight. Munoz learned from the experience, worked back, dropped the weight, and got back in the win column in 2013.
The 37 year-old heads into next week's UFC 184 event having lost his last two bouts by stoppage, however. He also went into his most recent fight, against Gegard Mousasi in May, with injured ligaments in his knee that ended up completely snapping in the fight.
So, for the past year and some change, Munoz has had to go through loss once more, undergo surgery and battle with the blues once more. During a break in his training for UFC 184, Munoz tells FOX Sports that he handled the hurdles a bit more constructively this time out, but that losing is never something he deals well with.
"Losing, to me, I've gotten better at, but I'm never going to be good at it," he explains.
"That last loss hurt me a lot. It goes deeper. There's something about MMA. The highs are high but the lows are low. I was experiencing that low big time. I'm not a guy that does drugs, parties or drinks alcohol, but I love eating and I kind of reverted back to that. It wasn't quite so bad as after the loss to Weidman, though."
All that makes this upcoming fight, against Roan Carneiro, all the more important for Munoz. Since his amateur wrestling days, he's always been a winner, and he wants to get back to that form.
"I'm a competitor, and so even though I felt bad, I got back up and ready to go. I'm ready to fight this fight. This is something that is very important to me. A lot of people have put a lot into me."
Fighting and winning again is so important to the "Filipino Wrecking Machine," in fact, that he even went against his doctor's advice to pursue that goal. "My knee was hurting a little bit before the last fight but I didn't think it was that bad of an injury. It was irritating me," he remembers.
"And then my MCL and PCL completely tore in the fight. It was pretty bad. I'm too tough for my own good, is what my doctor told me. He said, 'you really need to start doing something different.'"
By that, Munoz explains, his doctor meant that he should stop fighting. "I said, 'what? No!'"
Munoz did listen to his coaches and training partners when they staged what he called an intervention, however. "When I insisted on continuing to fight, that's when my coaches, and managers came in and talked to me. They said, 'you're not a spring chicken anymore. You need to get as much rest and recovery as you do training.' That's something that I neglected. And, of course, I'm getting older, so it's not getting easier to recover."
Between his wife, four kids, running one of the biggest and most respected fight gyms in Southern California, Reign Training Center, coaching other fighters and doing his own training, it was little wonder how Munoz found it difficult to give himself the rest he needed. But, he listened to his loved ones and changed the way he trained, and rested.
"What I'm doing now is a heart rate based training program where I hit a target zone," he details.
"I had never thought about doing anything like that in my life, before. I would just red line the whole time I trained, so for like five to six hours a day. That releases a ton of cortisone into your body, you hold on to weight, you get injured more. They described things to me on a cellular level and with having my knee injured, and the year I had last year, it started making sense to me.
"When I'm on this training protocol, I go hard when I go hard and I go light when I go light. They've also made me take what they call 'Mark Time,' where I take a two hour break in the middle of the day so I can get my body back to homeostasis. With being a UFC fighter, training, running a gym, having a wife and four kids, coaching and teaching, there are a lot of things that I do that prevent me from getting the rest and recovery that I need. That last fight, I was doing all of those things, not getting the rest and recover I needed and still trying to be an elite athlete. It took a toll on me."
For this upcoming fight at UFC 184, Munoz has been able to focus on himself thanks to the support of his team and loved ones. He's eternally grateful that he's got a circle around him who is as willing to give back to him as he was to them.
"You reap what you sow," he believes.
"I sowed selflessness with all the guys for a long time and I'm reaping what I sowed in them, now. It's awesome to be able to have that. It's awesome that the guys see that when I have something coming up, especially now at this time, that they support me."
Munoz insists that he isn't deterred by his two back-to-back losses. He has a new UFC contract and a renewed competitive fire.
Munoz won't let tough losses damper his competitive spirit.
"I still have the fire and drive," he says.
"I keep up with all the guys in my gym. I know I can still do it."
Munoz is smart enough to know that he can't fight forever, and he's building opportunities for himself outside of competition. At the same time, he still has goals for himself as an athlete, and isn't ready to let those go just yet.
"I know that I will have this transition where I can go to. I have the gym, I have this anti-bullying campaign I'm doing. I have opportunities to go to the Philippines and train fighters and take charge of a program there," he says.
"There are definitely a lot of things I can do, but I want to be able to prove to myself that I can reach the top and compete to be the world champion."
