Matt Brown's win, Diego Sanchez's loss, and a conflict as old as the fight game

History told us what was going to happen when Matt Brown met Diego Sanchez in UFC Fight Night 120’s co-main event on Saturday. Not just in the fight itself, but in everything that came after.

You take a grizzled old junkyard dog like Sanchez (27-11 MMA, 16-11 UFC), up a weight class and in there against a human woodchipper like Brown (21-16 MMA, 14-10 UFC), who swears it’s his last fight? You look at the knockouts that never used to find their way to Sanchez’s door, but only recently seemed to figure out exactly where he lives. You factor in the chance for Brown to get a finish that might be the finish.

What you have there is a recipe for sudden unconscious that would leave one man in doubt and the other as resolute as ever.

What’s too bad is that each of those post-fight feelings found their way to the wrong man. But then, you knew that would happen too, didn’t you?

Start with Brown, who was offered a fond farewell on a silver platter here. Sanchez doesn’t have the size or power or resiliency for welterweight these days. He also no longer has the quickness or speed that might otherwise be the smaller man’s saving grace. As Brown caught Sanchez’s kick and used it to walk him back into the fence, you could almost see him doing this math in his head.

Then came the elbow, an almost disdainful blow that went arcing down through Sanchez’s hopeless defenses. One was all it took to turn Sanchez upside-down and inside-out. The way Brown lingered over his crumpled body before being shoved away and into his victory celebration, you kind of got the sense that he was wishing it would have required more of him.

So yeah, of course retirement doesn’t sound like such a great idea now. Of course he’s doubting his own decision. Why wouldn’t he?

He felt great out there, man. He had a great training camp. He was fit and focused and determined, which sometimes happens to fighters when they tell themselves it’s the last time they’ll ever have to put themselves through this. Then he went out there and smashed the guy who seemed tailor-made for smashing.

On one hand, what are the odds he’ll ever find a better win to end on? On the other, why quit when you clearly don’t have to yet?

But then you have to ask yourself what it will look like when you have to. And chances are, it’ll look a lot like what’s been going on with Sanchez lately. Not that he is in any way capable of seeing it for what it is.

Sanchez, to the surprise of absolutely no one, was grinning through the scar tissue over on Instagram after his second straight knockout loss, assuring us, “I’m not done.”

“I still have fight in me,” Sanchez wrote.

In a way, you know that’s probably true. Even if he doesn’t have any more wins left in him, he still has the will and the desire to march directly into the cannon fire. That’ll probably be the last thing to go, which is a good way to get yourself badly hurt in this sport.

But what else is he supposed to do? He doesn’t want to go out like that. Plus, while he’s somehow only 35, in terms of chronological age, this has been Sanchez’s life for the last 15 years. He broke into the UFC by winning “The Ultimate Fighter’s” first season, for crying out loud. You think after all that he’s going to, what, go and get a job at a bank?

These are some of the oldest conflicts in the fight game. It’s relatively easy to start this life, especially when you’re young enough that you can’t even imagine ever getting old. It’s stopping that proves to be the hard part, because whether the game tries to spit you out by force or whether it gives you the gentlest push at the end of a last loving embrace, you’re always going to wonder if it has more to offer.

Maybe just one more. And then we’ll see. But yeah, probably one more after that, just to be sure.

Because to even make it this far, you had to build up that brand of stubborn momentum, the kind that’ll carry you crashing through one wall after another – and there are a lot of them in this sport.

You can tell yourself you’re going to slow down gradually. Or you can vow to keep picking up speed. Either way, it’s probably not going to prepare you for the sudden force of that final stop.

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 120, check out the UFC Events section of the site.