Mark Munoz victorious over Aaron Simpson at UFC 123
On Saturday 20 November, in a preliminary card fight at Ultimate Fighting Championship 123, Mark Munoz defeated Aaron Simpson via unanimous decision.
Simpson and Munoz, long-time friends, ignored their friendship in their pursuit of moving up the UFC middleweight ranks. The two mixed martial artists built their friendship through college
wrestling. Munoz was a national champion wrestling for Oklahoma State while Simpson was an All-American with Arizona State. They both followed their wrestling careers by becoming coaches and eventually discussed becoming MMA fighters while coaching at the
2007 NCAA wrestling championships.
Both of these fighters made their MMA debuts in 2007. Munoz brought an MMA record of 8-2 into this bout, while Simpson’s record stood at 7-1. Both fighters were coming off losses in their
last fights, Munoz losing a split decision to Yushin Okami in August of this year, while Simpson fell to Chris Leben via a technical knock-out in June 2010.
Simpson started the fight aggressively, getting to Munoz with strikes and a leg kick before going after a single leg take-down. Simpson worked the leg, but could not get Munoz down and
they stood and faced off in the centre of the Octagon. The fighters then got in a clinch and Munoz was able to land two knees to the body of Simpson before they separated. Munoz tagged Simpson with a nice punch that hurt, but Simpson was able to get Munoz
against the cage and take some time to recover. The first round was very even with the fighters exchanging take-downs and escapes as well as strong striking.
The second round started with Simpson delivering a nice right hand to the body of Simpson. Munoz came back with a kick that Simpson easily caught and Munoz found himself on his back. Munoz
quickly regained his feet and delivered a spinning back fist on the break. Munoz delivered the next heavy blow with a hard kick to the head of Simpson, but Simpson was able to eat the kick and take Munoz to the ground. The referee quickly brought the fighters
back to their feet. The round ended with the fighters in a clinch against the cage.
The friends embraced to start the final round and then went to work. Munoz secured a take-down and the fighters displayed some good wrestling before Munoz delivered some hard strikes
to the head of Simpson. The fighters regained their feet and Munoz delivered a punch to Simpson's eye. The referee stopped the fight, giving Simpson time to recover from a perceived poke to the eye. The replay revealed that no poke occurred and the break was
a bad decision on the part of the referee. As the fight entered its last minute the combatants exchanged a flurry of strikes. The fight ended in the same manner with Munoz delivering the stronger punches.
The fight goes to the judges’ decision with all three scoring the fight 29-28 in favour of Munoz.
Munoz moves his MMA record to 9-2 while Simpson drops his second fight in a row and falls to 7-2.
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