We all know that UFC fighters don’t like the idea of fighting against friends or people that they’ve trained with, which is why we should look at Mark Munoz and Lyoto Machida in awe; as these are guys who are friends and have trained together and are completely willing to fight each other. They get it, the Bushido Code, the warrior spirit. I get that everyone has their training camp secrets and that no one wants to hurt a friend, but let’s be realistic here, most MMA fighters aren’t killing each other.
Growing up I used to fight with my friends all of the time. We’d put together a set of “Gentlemen’s Rules” and stick to them. Sometimes we’d beat the living crap out of each other, but we made sure to not do any permanent damage and to always be attentive in case someone had too much. So it’s nice to see Munoz and Machida willing to play under the same rules, in fact, they were training two days before the fight was made. Two days. Damn.
“[We trained together] two days before the fight got announced,” Munoz told Ariel Helwani of the extreme short notice on Monday’s The MMA Hour. “So, it was quite recent. We talked about it and it took us by surprise. Unfortunately, we don’t want to do it, but it’s something we have to do and it’s just part of the business.
“We were just rolling together at the Gracie Academy two days before we found out,” he continued. “I was wanting to say no obviously. We’re training partners, but at the same time, we just trained together and we were getting ready to train a lot more together.”