Being underdog suits UFC Fight Night 40's Matt Brown just fine

(This story first appeared in Friday’s USA TODAY.)

CINCINNATI – Matt Brown is well aware there’s buzz around him. Six-fight winning streaks will do that.

But at this point, he might be a little more concerned with the hype around his opponent than with his own — and with setting the experts straight Saturday.

Brown (18-11 MMA, 11-5 UFC) has cemented himself as one of the UFC’s top welterweights heading into his main event at UFC Fight Night 40 (10 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1) against Erick Silva (16-4 MMA, 4-3 UFC).

Yet despite his six-fight run, which features five knockouts, he remains a 2-to-1 underdog against a fighter who has yet to string together two in a row in the UFC.

“There’s no way I can ignore it, because I’ve been asked the question 800 times,” Brown told USA TODAY Sports about his underdog status. “But it doesn’t make any sense at all, even looking at it not from a biased perspective. Maybe (the oddsmakers) know something I don’t.”

Brown, 33, has been down this road before. An Ohio native who will fight in his home state for the first time since 2009, Brown put a beating on Stephen Thompson in 2012, handing him his first MMA loss after a kickboxing career in which he went undefeated in 57 fights. A year later, he shut down Canadian prospect Jordan Mein in the second round, again with the experts looking past him.

“I’m no stranger to fighting the hype trains; it’s not my first one,” Brown said. “And every time, I’m an underdog. But hype doesn’t win fights. All that does is put more pressure on him.

“He has to realize all this hype is not necessarily good for him and not necessarily true, that he’s got to put in the work. If he put in the work, he’s an extremely dangerous guy.”

Silva has alternated wins and losses throughout his UFC tenure, though one loss was a controversial disqualification that kept him from having a winning streak. His most recent bounce-back came in February, when he knocked out Takenori Sato in less than a minute.

The Brazilian remains highly regarded, despite alternating wins and losses, and a win for Brown would give him seven in a row — consistently against stronger competition each time.

It’s rare for a fighter to have seven wins in a row in the UFC and not be a champion or have a title shot. But Brown said that possibility is far from his mind.

“The run that I’ve been on means nothing right now,” he said. “Sunday morning, I could be on a seven-fight winning streak or a one-fight losing streak. I’m not looking in the past at all. I’m not looking at what I’ve already done.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 40, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.