UFC: Mark Munoz Plans to Continue Fighting Despite Recent Struggles

Following his loss to Gegard Mousasi this past weekend, many in the MMA community were calling for Mark Munoz to hang up the four-ounce gloves.

But Munoz isn't answering those calls and plans to continue his MMA career, according to his post-match press conference:

"You’ve just go to pick up the pieces and keep going. It was a tough loss, but I think it doesn’t matter how many times you fall, but it’s how many times you pick yourself back up after a loss or a failure. So that’s what I’ll do."

Munoz may not be concerned with how many times he's failed recently, but the UFC and fans are. Munoz is just 1-3 in his last four fights, and all three of those losses have come before the final bell. Chris Weidman stopped him in devastating fashion back in 2012, Lyoto Machida dropped him with a head kick in the first round and Mousasi was able to get the first-round tapout in their contest.

Munoz has some of the best amateur wrestling credentials in the division, but his wrestling hasn't translated very well to MMA. That was evident again as Mousasi completely negated the wrestling of Munoz en route to a submission victory.

"The Filipino Wrecking Machine" also believes that a knee injury may have played a role in his loss to Mousasi, per his official Facebook page.

Knee injury or not, it's become pretty clear that Munoz isn't a member of the middleweight elite at this point in his career. He was on a four-fight winning streak that put him in the title picture, but he has cited issues with depression and has simply faced better fighters.

After all, there's no shame in losing to the likes of Weidman, Machida and Mousasi.

Still, Munoz is 36 years of age and is clearly on the down slope of his career. He can still be a gatekeeper between the upper and lower half of the division, but with a declining physical skill set combined with less-than-spectacular results in the cage, is that how we want to see one of the good guys of MMA go out?