After compiling a seven-fight win streak dating back to February 2012, Matt Brown finds himself in unfamiliar territory as he now attempts to dig himself out of a two-fight losing skid. Aware that such situations require drastic adjustments to make the necessary improvements, Brown gradually began to strip his life back down to the bare necessities.
“I think my mind is in a better place than it’s ever been,” Brown told MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani. “Basically, after the Hendricks fight, I stepped back and had to stop and think about what is going wrong here. I had to think about what I had to do to get to that next level. What do I have to do to go from No. 5 in the world to being champion. I was very close to surpassing that level.”
Brown’s losses were disappointing yet not devastating, as he lost to the reigning welterweight champion Robbie Lawler, as well as former champion Johny Hendricks. However, as someone dedicated to becoming the best fighter he could be, Brown was not about to use their ranking as an excuse for his current skid.
Instead, he plans to use the losses as the necessary spark to rekindle the fighter’s flame.
“I’ve rededicated myself to the sport,” he explained. “I’m coming into this fight as if it is my first UFC fight. I’m looking at it like it is a new beginning for me. I want to start a completely new path. I’ve changed my personal life and my training life.”
The changes to his personal life were particularly dramatic, as Brown decided to “purge” his personal belongings, including his gun collection and his Jeep.
“I basically got rid of everything and just rebuilt everything. I sold all my guns – I have one for self-defense [left] – but I’m not shooting on the weekends now. I sold my jeep and all these other things that were kind of meaningless in my life. All these things add up; 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. In the end, it has created a happier home life for me and a happier training life for me.”
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