UFC Vegas 74 on Saturday found bantamweights Daniel Santos and Johnny Munoz Jr. paired up in a promising preliminary card scrap.
The fight, originally scheduled for May then pushed back a month, found both men looking to build on recent wins.
As expected, “Willycat” opened up with fast forward pressure throwing a high kick within the opening seconds, only shortly after, landing a huge low-blow kick. As soon as the fight began, it was already stopped. As soon as the two restarted, Santos continued with the big kicks. Munoz decided to try to get the fight to the ground to mitigate the striking prowess of Santos. He subsequently decided to pull guard and looked for an arm bar with Santos breaking out. Surprisingly, Santos decided to try and land a ground strike as Munoz welcomed him down, and ended up catching Santos in a big triangle attempt. Santos managed to break out and the fight returned to the feet. Shortly after, Munoz landed a low-blow kick of his own and the action halted again.
From there, the fight began to be a little bit scrappy as the two engaged in a clinch with Munoz claiming another low-blow landed. Munoz’s game-plan became clear as he attempted a few more takedowns paired with submission attempts. The round ended with Munoz inviting Santos down to the ground, with Santos rejecting the invitation as the horn sounded.
As round two began, Santos once again applied forward pressure with Munoz inviting the forward pressure for him to be able to clinch up and attempt to get the fight to the ground. Once again though, Santos finished in top position on the ground and continued to land some heavy ground-and-pound. Santos controlled in the guard of Munoz for the remainder of the round, whilst occasionally throwing in some heavy ground-and-pound.
Almost exactly as it did at the start of round one, Santos came out into round three and caught Munoz with yet another low-blow kick. This time though, Herb Dean decided that was enough and took a point from Santos. This ended up lighting a fire in the backside of Santos who came out swinging straightaway. Unfortunately for him though, Munoz successfully invited Santos to enter his guard, where he was able to hang on and hunt for submissions again. With three minutes left, Santos had Munoz clinched up against the cage and jumped a guillotine attempt that he subsequently lost. Despite having lost the guillotine, it allowed for him to stay out of extensive danger for the rest of the round.
The final horn sounded, and the judges scorecards were surprisingly needed.
Official Result: Daniel Santos def. Johnny Munoz Jr by Unanimous Decision (29-27, 29-27, 29-27)
