UFC's Browne credits awareness for surviving Overeem barrage, says stoppage just

Travis Browne announced himself as a legitimate heavyweight contender with his UFC Fight Night 26 win over Alistair Overeem, but there are critics who believe he didn’t deserve the victory. “Hapa” laughs off that claim and is happy to explain why.

“People are saying, ‘Oh, it should have been stopped earlier,’” Browne told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “Well obviously not because I came back and knocked him out.

“He was not responding when I was hammering his face with my fists. He was out. He was looking everywhere but me or at Mario Yamasaki.”

Browne (15-1-1 MMA, 6-1-1 UFC) and Overeem (36-13 MMA, 1-2 UFC) met in the co-feature of Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 26 event at Boston’s TD Garden. It was “The Reem” who got the upper hand early, blasting Browne with big knees to the body and pounding away with punches as the 6-foot-7 heavyweight cowered against the cage. With referee Mario Yamasaki watching closely, Browne did his best to defend the onslaught of punches as he climbed back to his feet.

There was some outcry from Overeem’s supporters that the fight should have been stopped during the exchange, but Browne said there was a key reason why it wasn’t: He was actively responding to Yamasaki’s instructions.

“During the barrage that he was throwing, ‘I could hear Yamasaki saying, ‘You’ve got to move. You’ve got to do something,’” Browne said. “So I was yelling at Yamasaki and saying, ‘I’m OK! I’m OK!’ Then I moved and just showed that I had life left. I was there mentally the whole time.”

Once back on the feet, Browne made the most of his opportunity. An Anderson Silva-esque front kick scored directly to Overeem’s chin, and the former Strikeforce champ crumpled to the floor. Browne immediately followed to the ground and landed two crushing hammerfists before Yamasaki called an end to the fight at the 4:08 mark of the opening round.

While Overeem certainly wasn’t given the same recovery time Browne had received moments earlier, the victor explained the difference in the scenarios: Overeem wasn’t coming back.

“His eyes were so far back in his head that I wasn’t even going throw a third hammerfist,” Browne said. “I cocked back, but I was looking at him and thinking, ‘Nah, he’s done. I’m not going to hit him again.’

“There was no response from Alistair when he was flat on his back looking at the light. If he would have given him an extra five or 10 seconds, there would be something wrong with him right now. When your head is bouncing off the mat? The first one was the hardest one. I was actually landing on the ground when I threw it.”

For Browne, who has lost just once in eight UFC appearances, the win helped to announce his arrival as a legitimate contender in the heavyweight division. How the stoppage affects his position in the public’s eye remains to be seen, but Browne said he anticipated there would be a backlash even before he entered the cage.

“I almost called it before the fight even happened,” Browne said. “I said, ‘What’s going to happen is I’m going to go out here, I’m going to win, and then everybody is going to make excuses for the guy.’ I knew people were going to say, ‘If he would have fought the Overeem back in the day, it would have been completely different.’ I beat him. I knocked him out. Stop making excuses for the guy.

“When I sat in the press conference after I lost to Antonio Silva, I came out and said, ‘I don’t have any excuses. I lost the fight. You can’t take that away from him.’ People are going to make excuses for their favorite fighter or who they think should have won, but you have to look at the facts and see what happened.”

Browne is certainly due for another big fight in his next contest. Fabricio Werdum is waiting on an opponent, and the winners of fights like Josh Barnett vs. Frank Mir, Daniel Cormier vs. Roy Nelson and even champ Cain Velasquez vs. Junior dos Santos will all be looking for a high-profile opponent.

While the 31-year-old Browne doesn’t know what’s coming next, he wants to put an end to any talk of what should or shouldn’t have happened against Overeem.

“You get hit in the body, you’re able to respond,” Browne said. “I was responding the entire time. Yamasaki told me to do something, and I did it. He needed a sign of life, and I yelled at him. Yeah, you get kneed in the gut by Alistair Overeem, you’re going to go down, and he’s going to do his job of following up with those rabbit punches and try to finish the fight on a technicality. I didn’t need the ref to finish the fight. He was out cold.

“This is a fight. Why do you need a ref to stop the fight anyway? He wasn’t getting back up after I knocked him out. That’s honesty. Alistair did everything he could do so he could win the fight in the first three minutes of the fight, but he would have needed the ref to stop the fight to get the win. I didn’t need the ref to stop the fight. I stopped the fight.

“It is what it is. There’s always going to be controversy. But he had no response.”

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