He lives in crappy apartment, but at least Marcus Brimage's no longer a 'regular person'

Ask Marcus Brimage to expand on what he meant when, after kicking Jumabieke Tuerxun in the face for a first-round knockout win at UFC Fight Night 55 this past weekend, he made reference to a horrible year that he’d rather put behind him, and he’ll tell you.

He’ll tell you all about his ruptured achilles tendon, his financial woes, his dark moments alone as he struggled to come back from injury, only to then lose a split decision to Russell Doane at UFC 175 in July. But really, Brimage’s bad year boils down to one thing, he said.

“I had to give up fighting for a while and become a regular person,” Brimage told MMAjunkie. “That was terrible.”

It was far more terrible than the rupture of his achilles tendon, which was, Brimage said, “the most painful injury I’ve ever had.” It was also more terrible than his current living situation, which he documented in an MTV “Cribs” parody that, some two years after he shot it, went viral on MMA message boards for reasons that ought to be obvious to anyone who’s ever participated in a discussion about UFC fighter pay:

But see, Brimage doesn’t mind the crappy apartment with the kitchen he can barely turn around in and the TV he can see from the toilet. He doesn’t exactly love it, he admitted, but he finds it a little too convenient that people have seized on it only now, “when if they really cared how I was living, they’d have been talking about it two years ago when I posted it.”

The point, according to Brimage, is not just that he lives in a crappy apartment (and yes, he still lives there, though he plans to move in with his girlfriend in February). The point is why he lives there, and why he doesn’t even mind all that much.

“I mean, I’m a guy with two degrees,” Brimage said. “It’s not like I’m there because I messed up. The only reason why I’m there is because I have a dream of becoming a UFC champion. I mean, yes, my situation sucks. It sucks very much. But it sucks because I’m chasing a dream right now. It’s not because I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing in life.”

This is exactly why the last year was so hard on him, Brimage said. Living in a crappy apartment and just scraping by financially, that’s fine with him, as long as it’s in service of a larger goal, and as long as he gets to be a fighter in the meantime. After rupturing his achilles, which meant no fights and no UFC paycheck, he was forced to take another job as a personal trainer.

“That was keeping me afloat, but it wasn’t really making me happy,” Brimage said. “The only thing that made me happy was fighting.”

And so when he got the chance to step in against Tuerxun (14-3 MMA, 0-3 UFC) in Sydney this past Friday, Brimage (7-3 MMA, 4-2 UFC) said, he couldn’t have been happier. When he landed that kick to the chin that effectively ended the fight in the first round, he added, he was so happy it took a couple more days for it to even sink in. After the year he’d had, just being healthy and having the opportunity to fight meant so much.

“I’d gone from being a guy who could basically do backflips off the wall to not being able to walk for a little while,” Brimage said. “That gives you a whole new perspective.”

So what if he’d be leaving Australia after that and heading back to a crappy apartment? It’s not forever. And it’s not for nothing.

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 55, check out the UFC Events section of the site.