Video: Despite opponent's layoff, Tim Boetsch ready for best Munoz at UFC 162

It’s hard to expect anyone having a significant MMA win streak snapped and being fine with it. Tim Boetsch is no different.

Boetsch (16-5 MMA, 7-4 UFC) tries to get back on track next week against Mark Munoz (12-3 MMA, 7-3 UFC) to open up the main card of UFC 162, which takes place at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

It will have been a little more than six months since Boetsch’s third-round TKO loss to Constantinos Philippou at UFC 155 kept him from pushing his win streak to five. Truth told, he might not be over it yet – though he’s plenty focused in on Munoz.

“I was really ticked off about losing that last fight,” Boetsch told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). “I was ready to get back to training the next day, if I could – I was that mad. I just wanted to redeem myself. It’ll be seven months that i’ve been stewing about that, training hard and making sure that I don’t make the same mistakes again. So absolutely, I’ve got a chip on my shoulder and I’m ready to get in there and show the crowd what I can do again.”

That chip will come against a fighter who might just have one of his own – or at least also can feel a little pressure having had a decent streak broken in his most recent fight, as well.

Munoz had a four-fight stretch of his own until he ran into Chris Weidman a little less than a year ago. Weidman stopped him with a vicious elbow and punches in bunches on the ground. After that loss, Munoz dealt with some injury issues, an admitted funk over the setback and the injuries and some weight gain.

But he remains a fixture in the rankings, checking in at No. 8 in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie.com MMA middleweight rankings. Boetsch checks in at No. 10, and he knows for him to not only get back on track, but keep moving forward, he has to beat fighters ahead of him.

“At this point in my career, it certainly matters who the opponent is,” Boetsch said. “It needs to make sense in the rankings and it needs to be a fight that has me moving in the right direction toward my goal. That being said, being ranked No. 10 by some rankings, I want to fight anybody that’s ahead of me. Mark’s been ranked up there higher than me for quite a while.

“I think a win over him is going to get me right back on track toward my ultimate goal of getting a title shot and being a champion. For me, it’s definitely important who my opponent is.”

Boetsch’s spirits may have been bolstered a little earlier this month when his fight with Munoz went from closing out the FX-televised prelims to opening up the pay-per-view main card. When the Ricardo Lamas-Chan Sung Jung fight was scrapped, it opened up the door.

That, Boetsch said, can make a big different with sponsorship money. But come July 6, it probably won’t be sponsorship money that’s the first thing on his mind. He won’t be thinking about Munoz being affected by a yearlong layoff, either.

“I’m preparing for the Mark Munoz that was winning NCAA Division I wrestling championships,” he said. “That guy’s still in there. He’s incredibly driven. He can be incredibly focused and all of those things that it takes to be a champion. I’m not taking this fight lightly. I did hear about some weight gain and other issues. He was dealing with injuries before. But as far as I know, this camp has gone very well for him, and I expect to see a very tough Mark Munoz in there. That’s the one I want to beat.”

For more on UFC 162, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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