Mark Munoz is co-headlining UFC
on Versus 2 on Sunday against Yushin Okami in San Diego, Calif. Just six days
later, Anderson “The Spider” Silva is defending the middleweight title against
Chael Sonnen in Oakland, Calif., at UFC 117. To help prepare for Sonnen’s high
level wrestling, Silva has been training with Munoz, a former Division 1
National Champion.
“We help each other
tremendously,” Munoz told MMAWeekly Radio. “He’s helped me in my last couple of
fights and I’ve been helping him sporadically because he was in Brazil most of
the time and he’d come here for a week or two and I’d help him out. Now he’s
out here, training out here in L.A., and we’re getting
together two to three times a week. He’s as important to me as I am to him.”
Okami is a southpaw, like Silva,
and Sonnen is a high-level wrestler, like Munoz. The pair training together
seems like a match made in heaven. Going back and forth between his own gym,
Reign Training Center, in Lake Forest, Calif., and Black House in Los Angeles,
Munoz is able to get the help and training he needs to face Okami, as well as
help Anderson prepare for, arguably, the biggest challenge of his career.
Silva’s background is jiu-jitsu
and Muay Thai, and while he’s been fighting for 10 years, “The Spider” has
never really focused on wrestling or wrestling defense.
“He’s been doing pretty well,”
said Munoz of Silva. “He learns really quick, obviously. He’s an elite athlete
and he’s become a student of the sport. As much as I come in, he wants to
wrestle and just to learn wrestling. He knows wrestling is a sport where you
have to have experience to be able to be versed in the techniques. He knows
that, so he wants to be versed enough to be able to implement his style.”
___________________________
Samantha
L. Johnson is a freelance writer originally from Southeast Idaho, currently
living in Las Vegas, NV. Visit her website
for her ramblings of on living in the MMA Mecca.
