How nearly getting cut from UFC proved to be best thing for 'Immortal' Matt Brown

Near the end of 2010 Matt Brown looked back at the year he’d had in the UFC and it looked like this: Loss, loss, loss.

All via submission. All in the second round. Three in a row, just like that.

Well, he figured after the third one, that should do it.

Because that’s how it usually works in the UFC. Anybody can lose one. It happens. You can even lose two in a row and the sky won’t fall. But three straight? For years it’s been the kiss of death for everyone but former champs or money-making superstars, and Brown, who was lucky just to be alive after a near-fatal heroin overdose nine years earlier, was neither. He could look at his own record and do the math. He already had.

“I thought for sure that I was going to be cut,” Brown told MMAjunkie. “I was pretty much already looking at what other avenues I would pursue, because I was almost 100 percent convinced that I was going to be cut.”

This was November of 2010, the last fight in Brown’s losing year. The capper was when he got guillotine choked by Brian Foster at UFC 123, just a little over a month after his wife gave birth to twin boys.

You want to talk about stress? There he is, a recovering drug addict, a new father, a fighter on a downward trending line. He just lost the fight that he couldn’t afford to lose, and he was sure that his job with the UFC was going to be the next to go. Then, as had happened before when Brown found himself closing in on the bottom, a moment of clarity.

“After I lost that third fight I was sitting there going, ‘OK, it’s over. I’m out of the UFC, at least for now. I’ll have to find a different job,’” Brown said. “That’s when I basically realized that it’s not as bad as I made it out to be. It’s definitely depressing, and it hurts your feelings, but life goes on. This isn’t the only job in the world.”

That’s when things began to get better. Or rather, that was the beginning of the beginning, coming to that conclusion, facing his worst fear and figuring out that the fear had been worse than the thing itself. That was a major epiphany for Brown, and one that made losing his job seem not so bad after all. Then a few weeks went by and, wouldn’t you know it, his manager called to tell him that he hadn’t lost his job. Somehow, he wasn’t cut. He was still a UFC fighter. Now what?

The Matt Brown of today – the one who’s currently riding a six-fight winning streak in the UFC, and is poised to headline UFC Fight Night 40 against Erick Silva in Cincinnati on Saturday night – will tell you that his losing year was “a confusing time,” and one that came on the heels of personal tragedy. His father had just died, after a battle with cancer, in 2009. He tried to put it aside and get back to work, but, well, you see how that turned out.

Brown still downplays the effect his father’s death might have had on his success in the cage, mostly because he doesn’t want to be seen as another losing fighter dragging around a sack of excuses – “There’s guys who have gone through the same kind of stuff that I went through and they were able to stay focused and get through the distractions, whereas I just didn’t,” Brown insisted – but between that, his own impending fatherhood, and the complex psychological soup that comes with climbing into a cage and fighting for money every few months, he was kind of a mess heading into that third fight of 2010. He’d already lost two in a row, and that was before two new members joined his family.

“The big thing was, I had it in my mind that I had to go out there and win now,” Brown said. “That kind of pressure isn’t really helpful. When I thought I was cut I remember thinking, ‘Well, I’ve still got to take care of these kids, so we’ll figure something out.’ Then when I realized I wasn’t cut it kind of reminded me that I’m going to take care of them either way, somehow, so I don’t have to go out there and do anything. I don’t even have to fight. This is something I’ve chosen to do, something I enjoy doing, and I’m fortunate that I get paid to do it. That just released the pressure for me.”

It also led to a realization that Brown said is central to ongoing success in the UFC. You hear all these pro fighters talk about how badly they “want it,” and that’s true for most of them, just as it true for him, Brown said. But there’s a difference between wanting it and assigning undue emotional weight to it.

“I kind of realized I could go out there and have fun, do the best I can, and if I’m good enough then I’m good enough, but if not I’ll go do something else,” Brown said. “Either way, I’ll still have food on the table for my kids, and I’ll still be a good fighter. My self-worth isn’t based on the UFC or my performances in the cage.”

It was an important realization, especially once you consider what might have happened if Brown had allowed himself to sink back into his old habits. Before he found MMA, he had a dangerous drug habit that nearly cost him his life after an overdose in 2001.

“For me, fighting was definitely my saving grace,” said Brown. “When I was partying and doing drugs, that wasn’t necessarily my personality. I’ve always been kind of an extremist, where I just take things all the way, which is a common fighter personality. But at the same time, I didn’t really fit in with the people I was hanging out and doing drugs with. I just didn’t have anything else to do. I didn’t have any motivation or reason to take care of myself.”

While other recovering addicts might choose any number of sober activities to fill the void, Brown said, for him it probably had to be martial arts “because there’s nothing else that really requires so much out of you and only you.”

After nearly giving up on the sport just before his stint on “The Ultimate Fighter,” Brown emerged from the reality show to find that he suddenly had something resembling an actual career in MMA. It wasn’t until his three-fight skid in 2010 that the sport seemed like it might give up on him, which was tough, Brown admitted.

“I wouldn’t say it was a depression, but it was just something where you’re like, man, this is something I worked so hard for and I thought I was good enough, but maybe I’m not,” he said.

With his resurgence, Brown proved that there was more to him than just that one bad year. He may have also proved that the sport shouldn’t be so quick to write a fighter off as soon as he drops a few consecutive fights. But more important than what he proved to others, Brown said, is what he proved to himself.

Because after all that? The losses and the disappointment and two newborn babies staring at you, waiting for you to show them what life has in store in them? Sure, you question yourself. You might even question just how in the hell you got here.

“But I’ve learned that you’ve got to keep your head up and keep looking through the windshield,” said Brown. “You can’t be looking in the rearview mirror all the time.”

Or, well, you can. But only if you want to crash.

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