Mark Munoz and Chris Leben engaged in two rounds of brutal warfare, but Leben was unable to see out of his left eye at the end of the second and his corner was forced to call the fight to an end. Leben, as usual, showed an amazing amount of heart, walking through a ton of huge Munoz punches to come right back and land brutal shots of his own. In the end, Mark’s wrestling was the difference as he put Leben on his back repeatedly and brutalized him with punches. Leben popped up a bunch of times and looked for chokes in between landing shots himself, but the cut and eye damage ware too much to overcome.
It didn’t take long for Munoz to get the fight to the floor in the first, but Leben did a great job of not ending up flat on his back and used the cage to walk back up to his feet. Leben actually ended up on top briefly, but couldn’t do much with it. Back on the feet, Munoz tried to throw a knee against the cage but Leben caught his leg and slammed him down. Munoz popped up, but ended up right in a guillotine. Leben dropped to his back looking for the finish, but it wasn’t there, and Munoz was able to open up with ground and pound. Munoz landed three huge shots on Leben’s chin, but he didn’t even blink and came right back with some shots of his own. The round was all action.
The second opened more cautiously, with each guy looking for the home run shot. Munoz ended up dragging Leben to the floor a minute in and unloaded with some huge ground and pound again, but again Leben just took it and managed to get up while throwing shots of his own. Munoz put him back down though and cut Leben open with an elbow. Leben gave up his back and ate some shots from behind, but out of nowhere he managed to get up, and immediately switched to an unsuccessful front choke.
At that point, the fight was stopped by the ref to check the cut. Leben initially said he couldn’t see, but when he was asked again, he said he could. Leben came right back after the restart looking for a guillotine, but Munoz hit a beautiful reversal right into full mount. Munoz just unloaded with huge shots, and even stood up to deliver more punishment with Leben sitting up against the cage. Leben looked for a guillotine yet again, but Munoz powered out and went back to mount. The round ended with the guys exchanging punches from a seated position. Yet another amazing round. But Leben told his corner he couldn’t see, so they had to stop it.
Munoz entered the fight on a hot streak, picking up three wins in a row and wins in six out of his last seven. He had climbed all the way to # 4 on the USA Today/SB Nation Consensus Rankings. Leben revived his stalled career with two wins in two weeks overAaron Simpson and Yoshihiro Akiyama last year. He lost to Brian Stann at UFC 125, but rebounded with a 27-second knockout of Wanderlei Silva earlier this year at UFC 132.
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