If you saw my post yesterday about Kai Kara France and Cody Garbrandt, you know I am going back and revisiting some of the fights from UFC 269 that I didn't get to talk about in the week immediately following the event. Today, we're going to discuss what the result of Dominick Cruz vs Pedro Munhoz has on the bantamweight division. This very well may have been the best fight on the entire card, which is really saying something given how great that card was from beginning to end. Dominick Cruz looked like he was fully back to his old self. The movement was there, the striking was there, we didn't get to see a ton of wrestling from him, but he at least tried to mix it up a few times, which I thought was a good plan. I thought Munhoz was a good opponent for him to sort gage where Cruz is at in his career and he definitely past the test. Cruz basically dominated the entire fight from beginning to end, except for a couple big shots towards the end of the first round that swung the round in Munhoz's favor. Up until that point in the round, I think Cruz was winning, so I really liked what I saw from him and I think he could be as little as 1 fight away from a potential title shot. Pedro Munhoz on the other hand is on a little bit of a slide. He's lost 4 of his last 5, albeit against really tough competition. Those losses come to Cruz, Jose Aldo, Aljamain Sterling, and Frankie Edgar, with a win over Jimmie Rivera mixed in. I don't think Munhoz looked bad and he almost finished the fight in the first, but other than that minute or so, he just looked a little outmatched. With that said, let's get into each fighter specifically.
I assume most of you are here for Dominick Cruz, so I won't make you wait. I thought Cruz looked way better in this fight than he did against Casey Kenney. Of course, Cruz is still working his way back from a really long lay off. He took 4 years between his loss to Cody Garbrandt and his return fight against Henry Cejudo. There was another full year between the Cejudo loss and his win over Casey Kenney. Now, this was a much more typical turnaround time for someone at Cruz's age of 9 months. I really liked what I saw from Cruz all around, but especially his movement. That's what really has me buying into Cruz's rise because his movement was back to what we saw from Dom at his best and is an indication that he is fully healthy physically and mentally trusts his body to do what he wants it to do. He really resembled his old self in a lot of ways and even in a bantamweight division that I think is the best class in the UFC and maybe the best individual weight class in any promotion, that's a dangerous proposition. As for negatives? He did get hurt in that first round and left himself exposed at times later on that Munhoz didn't capitalize on, but I think that's about it. I would say Munhoz is towards the top of the bantamweight division in terms of his power, so if Dom can stand up to his punches, survive the round, and go on to win, he can do that against virtually anyone. The question the remains is where does he go from here? Dom seems hell bent on only fighting up, so I'm going to limit my choices to that. I know everyone wants to see him fight Sean O'Malley and so do I, but I just don't think that's going to happen as Dom is more focused on the rankings than the level of his opponent. I largely disagree with Chael Sonnen, but this is one specific situation where I actually agree with him. I think a win for Cruz over O'Malley would carry way more weight than a win over Rob Font or Merab Dvalishvili due to the value that comes with their names. Cruz currently sits at 7 and we know he's not fighting Aljamain Sterling or Petr Yan next, so those names are out. The remaining names ahead of him are TJ Dillashaw, Cory Sandhagen, Jose Aldo, Rob Font, and Merab Dvalishvili. All of these are incredibly difficult matchups, but in terms of what I would want as Dominick Cruz, I think Merab is the worst matchup for him specifically. Dvalishvili is an absolute animal who will not stop wrestling and will not get tired. He got his chin checked by Marlon Moraes and he survived and went on to win the fight. I am admittedly a huge Cory Sandhagen fan and it's a little hard for me at times to see him completely bias free, but I just have a hard time seeing him losing to anyone who isn't Yan, Sterling, or Merab at this point. Include Dillashaw if you must but I thought for sure that Cory won that fight. I think the fight that probably sells the best would be a fight against one of the 2 other legends in that range: Dillashaw and Aldo. The problem is that I had those 2 matched up in a number one contender's fight whenever Dillashaw is able to return from his surgery. This leaves 1 fight for three guys and someone will have to be the odd man out. Dillashaw does have the injury and surgery to recover from, so it's hard to say what his timeline for a return is and that's if there's no set backs. There is the possibility that given his history of the title, he is able to just walk right into the next title fight after the unification bout. That would leave Cruz to fight Aldo and I don't think anyone would say no to that. When you're matching up a legend of the sport and arguably the GOAT of the division with anyone in the top 6, it's hard to go wrong. I think a fight against Aldo or Dillashaw gets the most hype from the public and probably gets the most viewers. Sandhagen and Dvalishvili are also great fights and would be tremendous wins, but I think those are the hardest fights for Dom to win. That sort of leaves Rob Font as just out there, but he's coming off a loss, so I don't know that the UFC would be in a rush to match those 2 up anyways. I think during this break in live events I'm going to do a breakdown of every division and try to come up with some matchups for everyone, so be on the look out for that. If it was up to me, I really like the Aldo fight for Cruz. Now that I think about it, it may make more sense for the UFC as well. We've already seen Aldo vs Yan, so putting him in a position to fight Yan again within like 3 matchups probably isn't super high on their list of things to do. Having Dillashaw walk into that title fight and setting up Cruz vs Aldo may be perfect for everyone, except Jose Aldo I guess.
Pedro Munhoz is in a little bit of a weird spot in his career. Despite losing 4 of his last 5, I don't see someone who is washed. Munhoz always looks solid, but just doesn't quite do enough to win. Munhoz has unfortunately run into really high level competition at times when we were kind of unsure about where they were at in their careers. Aljamain Sterling is currently the champion and I don't think many people thought of him to that degree when they fought. Aldo had lost to Petr Yan and then defeated Chito Vera when they fought, so I think the general opinion of him was down at the time compared to what we think of him now. The same can be said for Dominick Cruz. What if we look up in a year and Cruz is fighting for or has the title? We all look at this fight very differently. The main problem that I see for Munhoz in his last couple of appearances is that he's being out struck. Not by a lot, but by enough that it's noticeable that he's just doing less than his opponent in every round except the one big shot he dropped Cruz with. I'm not well versed enough in fight strategy and technique to say why for sure, but my speculation is that he's relying too much on his power and going for knockouts and relying on them too much. Munhoz has good power and good leg kicks and I wish he used those kicks more. Using leg kicks to limit your opponents movement would have been a great strategy against Cruz even though I believe Cruz was checking a lot of his attempts in this one instance. Given his current slide and his spot in the rankings, his next fight should be an interesting one. I said in a post approximately a week ago that I would like to see him fight Sean O'Malley and I still feel that way. We know the UFC likes to build young fighters off of the backs and resumes off of aging fighters and this would be an opportunity for them to do just that. However, I think Munhoz provides a lot of challenges for Sean O'Malley specifically. His leg kicks would be attacking the one known and proven weakness for Sean, which is the health of his legs and calves. Additionally, Munhoz has never been finished. This forces Sean to either go a full 15 with a tough opponent or he gets the finish against someone that no one has been able to do before. Some other options are Frankie Edgar, Raphael Assuncao, and Marlon Moraes. All three of these fights provide a similar type of situation. They're all against fighters who are not only coming off of a loss, but slumping in a noticeable way. He did just fight Frankie in 2020, so that fight probably isn't super high on the list, but it's still an option. Moraes is a little bit younger than the others, but at 33, I'm willing to say he's in the category of "aging fighter" even though he's very early on in that stage. The way he's been finished in his last 3 fights and last 4 losses suggests he may be a little older physically than just the number suggests. If he fights one of those 3, I think the loser may find his way out of the UFC. I don't enjoy saying that, but we've seen the UFC walk away from older fighters who are struggling and none of those 3 carry the same weight as Tyron Woodley or Junior Dos Santos. I think Pedro Munhoz still has a lot to offer to the MMA world, but this is ultimately a result driven business. I still would put Sean O'Malley at the top of the list for Munhoz, with just some marginally interesting fights for him with some other people in his age and ranking bracket.
What do you guys think? What did you think of the fight? Who do you want to see next for Dominick Cruz? Do you think he can get back to the title? What about Pedro Munhoz? What do you want to see next for him? Leave any and all thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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