Humility carrying UFC's Travis Browne, even in wake of Werdum's claims

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Travis Browne stops himself in the middle of a sentence and suddenly looks at a loss for words.

“I hate being humble at times,” says the 31-year-old fighter from Hawaii, who now lives and trains in Albuquerque, N.M., at Jackson-Winkeljohn’s MMA alongside a gaggle of UFC vets.

Humility is the attitude Browne feels is necessary to respond, but it’s not the easiest one to take in this particular moment. When someone drags your past into your present in an attempt to negate your abilities, as his upcoming opponent has done (via one nosy reporter), it’s not a pleasant conversation.

Even before they were officially booked to headline this month’s UFC on FOX 11, Fabricio Werdum (17-5-1 MMA, 5-2 UFC) said he got the best of Browne (15-1-1 MMA, 6-1-1 UFC) when they trained together three years ago.

“He knows how the training was,” Werdum said. “He knows that he doesn’t have a good ground game.”

It’s the type of boastful claim Browne finds both irrelevant and unnecessary, and yet, he doesn’t take the opportunity to fire back with similar invective.

“I’m not just running my mouth and letting it go,” he tells MMAjunkie. “Just let it be truth. Let it just be the truth. I’m all right. Because come April 19, that’s when it matters.”

That is the date for the heavyweight main event, which takes place at Amway Center in Orlando, Fla. Main-card fights air live on FOX following prelims on FOX Sports 1 and UFC Fight Pass.

Browne isn’t entirely mute on the subject, though. Before he reaches that line and decides not to cross it, he offers a question to his Brazilian opponent.

“Ask him if he’s ever submitted me or not?” says Browne. “I like to answer a question with a question on that one. We don’t really have to go into how it went in sparring, because both of us are two different fighters. He wants to say I know how it went; he knows how it went, too.”

Browne, of course, thinks he knows how things will go when they meet under professional circumstances in a fight that is expected to crown the UFC’s next heavyweight title challenger. If Werdum thinks the fighter he met all those years ago is the same one he’ll meet at UFC on FOX 11, he’s in for a surprise.

“Look at me four years ago and look at me now,” Browne says. “If he wants to bring that up, that’s only going to hurt him.”

Why continue to abide the naysaying, though?

“I don’t hate being humble,” he adds. “Because I am a very humble person, I’m very thankful for what I have. But when people say things that just don’t make sense – there’s no reason for anybody to be running their mouth like that – those are the times that make it tough.

“We all have trials and tribulations, and that shows who we are as a person. And I choose to be better than that. I choose to be a better person than run my mouth.”

Humble is the outlook Browne prides himself on carrying amid MMA’s gossip and wind-filled culture. It’s one he says he chose when he started climbing the ranks in the UFC, one he could have discarded long ago when it suited his career. He hasn’t yet.

“You’ve never seen me in front of the camera in the middle of the cage ask for anything,” he said. “I always earn what I have. That’s one thing I pride myself on. I don’t ask for anything. I earn it.”

Browne is just one of several writhing bodies on the floor at Jackson-Winkeljohn’s before he steps before reporters’ microphones, grumpily delaying a midday meal to participate in a UFC media day at the gym.

At the end of an intense wrestling-based workout, he drags himself across the mat by his elbows, resembling a soldier crawling under fire. UFC featherweight Clay Guida, who next week fights Tatsuya Kawajiri at UFC Fight Night 39, play jumps on his back and makes like a cowboy, drawing a smile.

UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones is one of just a few men in the room that equal the size of Browne, who, like Werdum, weighed in at 242 pounds in his previous performance.

It was at this past December’s UFC 168 that Browne put on display the devastating consequences wrought by his elbows, which were used to knock out Josh Barnett as he attempted a takedown against the fence. The fight took 60 seconds.

Browne claims he’s never practiced the strikes, but he now has a term for their concussive effect, based on his nickname: “Getting Hapa’d.”

“I showed people that you can be an opportunist in the cage,” he said.

Asked whether his elbows will shape his fight against Werdum, he said, “I think that’s going to modify a lot of what happens now when people get tired and try for a sloppy [double-leg takedowns]. Not just on me, but in general.

“At this point, nobody wants to get Hapa’d. Nobody wants to get Hapa’d. It sucks.”

So now his name is a verb? There’s that humility he was missing.

“It happens,” Browne says. “It happened. When you get as big as I do in this sport, it happens.”

Then, he laughs.

“That humility goes out the window when I’m being sarcastic, because it’s a complete joke,” he says.

For the latest on UFC on FOX 11, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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