[autotag]Matt Brown[/autotag] revealed he battled sickness before the plug was pulled on UFC on ESPN 8 in Columbus, OH. – and said he may even have had coronavirus.
Brown (22-16 MMA, 15-10 UFC) was scheduled to face Miguel Baeza on March 28 but, due to the growing threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UFC canceled the event.
Prior to that cancellation, Brown found himself fighting his own battle to make it to the octagon after contracting a major illness that he says may actually have been coronavirus.
“Yeah it was crazy, because I think I might have had coronavirus,” Brown told MMA Junkie. “I was definitely ultra sick, like the sickest I’d ever been in my life. I was a different sick than I had ever been. I was sick for a whole month and then I was just starting to get good, and you start hearing about the coronavirus (and) start hearing about the card potentially getting canceled, so I was just starting to get into my groove of training again.
“I had a whole month where it was just a complete mess, trying to get to the gym. Just kind of everyday thinking to myself, do I go train through the sickness or do I keep resting and try to recover from it? Then, finally, I said I was feeling good. I don’t know, maybe it was corona, maybe not, but I was certainly extremely sick for a long time so it turned into a real nightmare trying to get back into training and then not even knowing if I needed to train. But I pretty much train all the time, so it wasn’t a huge problem one way or another.”
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Though Brown had no intention of pulling out of the fight, matters were taken out of his hands when the event was postponed. Now, “The Immortal” admits he’s unsure what’s next for him.
“I haven’t really heard much of anything,” Brown said. “I know I did talk with the UFC about some other matchups, but nothing ever came to fruition, so I’m not sure what’s gonna happen.”