Diego Brandao on that slick armbar, EFN, and coming back from far gone

More than 300,000 people watched Diego Brandao pull off a helicopter armbar on MMAjunkie. Add other sites, and you could comfortably add a few hundred thousand more.

Most of them clicked to check out a particularly acrobatic version of the submission hold Ronda Rousey made famous. Only the religious followers of the sport might’ve thought about the guy who pulled it off, and how he got to that moment at January’s EFN 58 in Dagestan.

The short answer, according to Brandao (21-11), is he remembered his jiu-jitsu. He is, of course, a black belt in that.

The longer one is a little more complicated, but the fast-talking Brazilian’s main point in explaining is that he’s no longer thinking as much about the tangible rewards that come from fighting. Before, when he was a 23-year-old phenom with a reality show win under his belt, he thought a lot about paydays and fame. Now, he thinks about technique, and how he can do that best.

“I have my passion back,” he said. “This is what nobody believes.”

Admittedly, he made it hard. Only eight months before that night in Dagestan, he was in deep trouble. He’d allegedly brandished a pistol and assaulted three people at a strip club in Albuquerque, N.M. He faced four felony charges, including three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

In an interrogation video obtained by TMZ, he sat in handcuffs and lied to police about having a gun before admitting he’d borrowed one. The cops, no strangers to the Jackson-Winkeljohn gym at which he trained, had called his bluff.

“I don’t want to (expletive) my life,” Brandao said.

The arrest capped off a terrible run for the winner of “The Ultimate Fighter 14,” who’d popped positive for marijuana three months prior in the wake of a submission loss to Brian Ortega at UFC 195. The UFC initially said it was “concerned” about the strip club allegations and would wait until the case was resolved. But he was subsequently released from contract, citing violations of the UFC Fighter Conduct Policy.

It’s hard for Brandao to muster much outrage for the way he was treated. After all, he can’t argue much about the circumstances that led him to that point.

“They did a good job,” he said. “I think they did it to protect me, and to protect the company. I can’t complain about the UFC. They changed my life.”

And ultimately, Brandao’s understanding was that despite the public break, he wasn’t blacklisted. So he hired a lawyer and hunkered down for a legal fight, aiming to clear his name on the road to redemption.

One year after the alleged incident, he doesn’t have many details to offer about what happened. Amazingly, he dismisses it as “a little thing in my personal life” and a “misunderstanding” that was resolved by his attorney.

Ultimately, though, it led him back to some measure of stability. There were practical reasons to stay in Albuquerque, of course. But it also led him to re-connect with the gym where he’d found his first flush of success.

The fighter dorms at Jackson-Winkeljohn house dozens of fighters who are trying to build toward something bigger in the world of MMA. It was there Brandao got back to the schedule of a professional fighter. His longtime coach, Mike Winkeljohn, noticed the difference.

“If he gets through all his distractions outside of the cage, he’s very capable of beating anyone in the world,” Winkeljohn said. “He moved back into the gym and got real focused. It’s hard to get distracted when those around you are pushing to make sure you go to practice and do the right thing.”

As it turned out, the news wasn’t all bad after his release. Despite the fact he was identified by multiple bouncers at the strip club, none of them came forward to testify, and the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s office declined to pursue charges. That dissipated one cloud over his head.

In the following months, he signed a contract with EFN Global, a UFC Fight Pass-streamed promotion that holds events all over Russia and pays good money for UFC vets like him.

Before he pulled off that slick move, Brandao was losing his promotional debut. Murad Machaev, an unknown in the U.S. MMA scene who entered the fight with a 20-1 record, put him on his back early and wore him down with takedown after takedown. But Brandao stayed patient, and just 58 seconds into the second round, Machaev stalled in top position and let him set up by pushing his hips and rolling for the arm. The tap came instantly.

Based on that fight, Brandao was offered a featherweight title fight on June 2 against a yet-unannounced opponent, though he later told MMAjunkie the promotion changed its mind. He’s not worried about names, though he reports many are calling him out in the wake of his recent performance.

“This is what I want from 2017,” he said. “When I won ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ I was 23 years old. What do you do if you have a lot of money and you’re young? You go poor. I enjoyed too much of the money. So right now, I don’t fight for money. I don’t fight for fans. I just fight for myself.”

After finding his feet in Albuquerque, Brandao is now in Chicago, working with Mike Valle alongside UFC featherweight standout Yair Rodriguez and other UFC vets. He’s still buzzing about his turnaround. He’s also anxious to tell the story of his rebound.

“You don’t understand how happy I am today,” he said when he spoke to MMAjunkie. “I took charge of my life, and nobody called me. So I appreciate the opportunity to tell you I’m back.”

Homesick for Brazil, he’s made a promise to himself: No trips home until he wins a title – or gets back in the UFC. So far, he hasn’t gotten a call for the latter.

After such a roller coaster of a career, he admits, it’s going to take time.

“I’m doing my job,” he said. “I know they’re looking. I know they’re going to see me. What’s going to happen is, I’m going to keep continuing, and when I come back to the UFC, they will see my passion.”

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