Established middleweight contenders Demian Maia and Mark Munoz were booked to battle in the middle of Saturday’s UFC 131 card.
While Maia’s true talent is his high-level jiu-jitsu, the wrestling power of Munoz threatened to prevent Maia from gaining the desired ground advantage. That meant that his improving striking could be put to the test.
Would a battle between a high-level wrestler and high-level grappler really spend its duration on the feet? And who would claim victory?
The result follows:
Mark Munoz b. Demian Maia via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
*Story of the fight: A great, back-and-forth battle for Maia and Munoz. A big difference-maker early on was the dramatic improvement in the striking of Maia, who appeared to have gained tremendous power and speed in his hands. He clearly threw Munoz off in round one and even appeared to rock the heavy-handed wrestler once in the first round, adding a significant level of intrigue to the battle.
With that in mind, the 30-27 scoring makes absolutely no sense. Round one should have definitely been a Maia round.
Round two saw Munoz look for more wrestling opportunities. He was never really able to flatten Maia on his back, but he did use his powerful ground-and-pound to punish Maia from even neutral positions.
Maia, meanwhile, used his strong grappling skills to frequently move himself out of danger, but Munoz’ power and awareness prevented Maia from doing anything too dangerous from a jiu-jitsu standpoint. Interestingly, Maia also seemed to let the fight get away from the striking that fueled his impressive opening round as the battle went on.
Ultimately, it appears Munoz won based on aggression and power in the latter two rounds, but it was definitely a close fight due to Maia’s surprisingly-solid striking.
