Marlon Vera and Pedro Munhoz squared off in a Bantamweight contest earlier tonight (Sat., Aug. 19, 2023) at UFC 292 inside TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. Following a fun scrap, Vera was named the victory.
Munhoz came out firing kicks at a high-volume, trying to capitalize on Vera’s historic slow starts. Vera answered with a heavy counter punch and then started snapping jabs. Munhoz didn’t slow down a bit, continuously trying to kick the legs and body. Vera returned the favor with a heavy low kick. Munhoz’s first shot of the fight was stuffed, and Vera chopped into the leg afterward.
Good 1-2 and a knee score for Vera. The Ecuadorian was starting to get his timing and firing more timing. Munhoz stayed in his face anyway, landing some nice left hands from the Southpaw stance. Vera closed a highly competitive opening round with a clean counter right hand.
Munhoz maintained his high rate of activity into the second. Vera looked for funky kicks up the middle and mostly scored with the jab and counter shots. Munhoz’s overhand was starting to land in addition to his kicks. Munhoz was doing a good job of switching stances and putting out a lot of offense, which kept Vera a little more hesitant to commit. “Chito” was really starting to fall behind on the volume game when he turned it up with about 90 seconds remaining, sticking Munhoz with a series of hard straight shots.
With five minutes remaining, it felt like Vera needed a big showing in the third round. His hands were active early, both with jabs and combinations. A couple hard jabs from Vera wobbled his opponent’s knees. Then, a body-head combination really stunned him, forcing a failed takedown attempt from the Brazilian.
Within two minutes of really opening up, Munhoz’s face was busted up! Vera ripped his body with a left hook. Heavy left hand connection from “Chito,” but Munhoz just absorbs it and fires back. This is what happens when two wildly durable fighters throw down! Munhoz never backed down or stopped firing his kicks, but he got pretty thoroughly worked in the the final frame.
Despite Vera’s post-fight dance moves, the fight felt very much up in the air until the scorecards were announced. Somewhat surprisingly, Vera walked away with a unanimous decision featuring a couple 30-27 cards — odd given Munhoz’s strong second round. Even so, the right man won, as Vera definitely landed the heaviest shots across 15 minutes.
Might he be fighting Sean O’Malley next? That’ll depend on how the main event goes down later tonight!
Result:
For complete UFC 292: ‘Sterling vs. O’Malley’ results and play-by-play, click HERE!