The Throwback: Matt Brown is in the UFC for one reason - he loves fighting
The normal pre-fight bustle for any main event fighter in the UFC is almost always the same. There are interviews with media about seven to 10 days out from the bout, a few appearances when the fight first gets announced, and then fight week where there's usually a press conference or a media day for more questions and answers from the fighters.
By the end of the entire process, a fighter will typically answer the same question at least a dozen times and that doesn't mean they are bad questions. For instance, in the case of Matt Brown, who fights in the main event of this weekend's UFC Fight Night card in his hometown of Cincinnati, the most popular inquisitions involve his placement in the UFC welterweight title race.
Despite six wins in a row and a No. 7 ranking, Brown appears to be on the outside looking in when it comes to the title shot. With other top 10 fighters matched up against each other, Brown got paired with No. 14 ranked Erick Silva, which isn't a slight on the fight, but not the kind of marquee opponent needed to catch a champion like Johny Hendricks' attention.
Brown knows everyone is going to ask him about the title shot, and those questions are totally appropriate, but only after he gets past Silva. See, the way Brown approaches this fight is to look at it as if it's his last go round inside the Octagon. Fight for today because there is no guarantee of tomorrow.
"I'm only worried about my next one. I'm not worried about what's after that. I always look at every fight as if that's the last fight I'm ever going to have in my life," Brown told FOX Sports. "I mean God knows what could happen in your life after that, you know? I just see May 10 as the last day of my fighting career, so I want to go out there and fight like it's my last fight. What happens after that, we'll go from there, but for now I'm only worried about May 10."
What it all boils down to is fight night. Once those lights drop, the music hits the speakers and Bruce Buffer calls out his name, Brown is just ready for action. At the end of the day, for all the talk of sport, titles, rankings, paydays, and respect, the only thing that matters is two guys are going to lock horns in primal battle and only one can walk away the victor.
It's king of the jungle time for Brown and if you really think about it, all of the outside circumstances can only serve as a distraction when the real focus should be the person standing on the other side of the Octagon looking to tear your head off. Brown believes mistakes are made in the fight when you allow the outside world to invade those five rounds.
Instead he opts to remember why he's there in the first place -- he loves to fight.
"Everybody overcomplicates it. It is an entertaining sport and a lot of people are trying to be entertainers. Everybody's trying to make money. A lot of guys are trying to get political and bypass guys to the title, and things like that. For me, I just enjoy fighting," Brown said. "The reason that I signed up is because I love fighting. The reason I still train as hard as I do everyday is because I love fighting. The reason I wake up in the morning and I'm happy to go to work is because I love fighting."
It's that carnal instinct that makes Brown such a dangerous and different breed in this current atmosphere of mixed martial arts. In the age where talking and hyping a fight can mean just as much as the actual performance, sometimes the real fighters get lost in the mix.
Brown is one of those guys. He's a throwback to the old days of the UFC where the only thing you knew about the competitor was the 30 second clip that played before they marched to the Octagon to understand which fighting style they were going to employ. In some ways, Brown misses those days because in many ways those were the purest fights the UFC's ever staged. No one was trash talking or volleying for title shots. It was just two guys throwing down like a couple of alpha males both looking to defend their territory.
"I don't think of anything other than the 25 minutes that I'm going to be in there. That's the only thing that matters. Whether I'm fighting the champion or No. 100 in the world, every single person is a threat. They're going to come at me with everything they've got, trying to take what I've got, so forget about everything else. It's a fight. It's nothing else beyond that. Everything else is irrelevant. That's all I worry about," Brown said.
"That's something I think was one of the awesome things about the early UFC's. These guys were so authentic and they were who they were, you couldn't change them for anything. I feel like a little bit has been lost. That's one thing I'd like to keep in the UFC for myself is to maintain my identity and never change."
So this week as the interviews with Brown start pouring out, don't be surprised if some of the answers are the same because at this stage of preparation, he's only thinking about one thing. Title talk and contender status are subjects of importance, but not until Saturday night is over.
If Brown really is a threat to the welterweight division and ultimately a challenge for the champion, then it starts with beating Erick Silva. If that doesn't happen then what good comes from a cavalcade of interviews all stating that he should be the No. 1 contender and bluster about how he's really the best in the division?
"I feel like I could beat anybody in the top 10, but right now I've only got one person to worry about and that's Erick Silva," Brown said. "If I can't beat Erick Silva, maybe I shouldn't be champ anyways. I've got to get in there and do what I've got to do to Erick Silva and then just go from there."
