LAS VEGAS – [autotag]Matt Brown[/autotag] is back.
It will have been more than 25 months since Brown (21-16 MMA, 14-10 UFC) competed inside the cage. On Saturday night at UFC 245, Brown takes on fellow longtime veteran welterweight Ben Saunders (22-12-2 MMA, 9-9 UFC) in the featured preliminary card bout.
Brown previously was scheduled to take on Carlos Condit in April 2018, but a torn ACL forced him to withdraw. The injury landed him on the shelf for months. Being 37 years old when he suffered the tear, Brown said he considered himself retired.
“I retired,” Brown said. “In my head, I was ready to move on. I started my own business. I’m doing a coffee business now, too. I was ready to move on, but I was just in there training so much and just enjoying it so much. I thought, ‘Man, let’s go hit this.’ It’s too much fun.”
Not having to prepare for a fight and having no internal pressure to return helped Brown stay disciplined. Brown attributes his successful healing process to being able to mentally relax.
Relaxation made training fun again.
“This camp was everyday I went in there, I was happy to be in there,” Brown said. “I was happy to do the training. It felt good to take some time off and not be training for a fight, and be training just because I love training. I felt like getting back into this camp. I could just continue that joy of training.”
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His time away has revitalized his pre-fight nerves, but also his enthusiasm and fervor for MMA. When Brown steps into the cage Saturday night, it’ll be his 24th fight – but it’s reminiscent of his 2008 debut. Carrying no momentum into this fight due to absence, Brown feels like a rookie.
“I feel like the entire holistic process of this feels like zero,” Brown said. “I feel like I’m coming from nothing. What it actually reminds me of is my first fight in the UFC. I fought Dong Hyun Kim, a tall southpaw, on a big card.
“… It feels very similar to that and a lot of the nerves taking off on the plane to get out here. I was like, ‘Oh, (expletive). Here we go.’ That’s a good thing, to feel that renaissance. To feel how it used to feel.”
UFC 245 takes place Saturday at T-Mobile Arena. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN2 and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.
Check out MMA Junkie’s full interview with Brown in the video above.
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