Johnny Munoz had a picture perfect run on the regional circuit – it couldn’t go any better. Fighting 13 straight fights in Ring of Combat, 3 amateur followed by 10 professional, “Kid Kvenbo” had a flawless record and only needed the judges scorecards twice. All of that reached its highest point with a bantamweight title victory and a UFC contract.
But the UFC debut didn’t go as planned for the California native. A short notice fight with Nate Maness saw plenty of back and forth action, but ultimately the judges saw the fight for Maness. Despite taking the first ‘L’ in his first fight on the biggest stage, Munoz said it didn’t really hit him all that hard.
“You see a lot of guys, sometimes they’ll take their first career loss and they’ll crawl into a hole. They don’t know how to rebound from it – they often don’t come back the same,” Munoz said, citing his time competing in sport jiu jitsu as helping his mental state. “But I know how to handle that defeat. Move on, hop back on the horse and live to ride another day. That’s the mentality you have to have. If you sit there and think about it, you’re not going to grow and you need to be able to grow from it.”
A growth mentality is what Munoz believes got him all the way to the big show. Although there are some technical areas he looked to improve on in this camp, some of the bigger improvements includes the mental aspect of what he is doing in the cage.
“I think the main thing for me is really believing in my ability and all my skill sets in the cage,” he said. “I believe if I could do what I do when I’m in the gym, then I could beat anybody in the world… I believe in myself, I need to believe in my abilities – and I feel that’s what I really sat down and worked on.”
And while he looks to grow in some aspects of the fight game, there are parts that he feels needs to stay the same. One part of that is the pressure that he puts on himself.
“I really don’t feel any different than when I was undefeated. I know some people feel like when they lose, there is pressure off of them,” Munoz explained. “For me, I don’t feel like that.”
Munoz looks to make use of that growth and continued pressure on himself to be great when he faces Jamey Simmons this weekend. According to Munoz, it’s going to be one fans do not want to miss.
“I predict a finish on him, whether it be by knockout or submission. I kind of see both scenarios playing out,” he said. “I guess that’s why everyone is going to have to tune in August 7th to watch it.”
You can catch that bout as the opening prelim for UFC 265 this Saturday on ESPN+.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview at 2:14.
