As far as Brighton’s Danthony Muniz was concerned, things couldn’t have been better early in the spring.

Muniz, who’s aiming to become a professional mixed martial arts fighter, was getting set for his first foray into submission grappling.

The goal is to score submission victories as opposed to wrestling, where pins are the name of the game. Muniz had a spot on a submission grappling card in New York in late April. Then the injury bug bit.

“I fractured my shoulder during live training a week before leaving for New York,” Muniz said. “Time off the mat was all it took to recover. It was definitely a very long month.”

That wasn’t all.

“At first it was a very hard hit on my mental state,” he said. “I was very down and upset. But I knew it was a part of the process. So, I just kept my head on straight and thought about the positive things that could come from it.”

The doctors wouldn’t let him train on the mats. But they let him run. His normal output had been five miles a day.

He’s doubled that since the injury. He’s also found some new training partners.

“I have been mainly training with Thug Rose Namajunas (a member of the Ultimate Fighting Championship organization and former two-time UFC women’s strawweight champion), Pat HD Barry (a former American mixed martial artist and kickboxer).” Others in the training group are Tatsuo Taira (a Japanese mixed-martial artist), Alonzo Menified (an American mixed-martial artist) and Ralek Gracie (a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu grappler and mixed martial-arts fighter).”

All the work is leading toward an appearance with CJCC, a professional grappling association, in early September in Aurora He and his brother, Dom (also a BJJ fighter), started a clothing and landscaping company, Lifestyle.

But for now, he's back on the mat, and that's enough.