TUF 7 alum Matt Brown was supposedly headed for retirement after his highlight reel elbow knockout win over Diego Sanchez at UFC Norfolk last November. Throughout the last few months, however, “The Immortal” was suddenly on the fence about the idea.
The 37-year-old Brown began questioning himself after his recent string of three losses, especially since that last two happened against Jake Ellenberger and Donald Cerrone, respectively, marked the first knockout defeats of his career. It all changed, however, when he shifted his mindset a bit in preparation for Sanchez.
“I just started kind of questioning ‘What am I doing?’ And the first thing I went through was ‘How do I not make it happen again?’” Brown told Joe Rogan during a recent episode of the JRE MMA Show podcast.
“That gets very exhausting when you just think of ‘How? How? How?’ right? And I think through the Diego camp – because I announced retirement very early in the camp, like 12 weeks out – through the camp, everything went so well. I focused more on my own mind, and I started getting back into the ‘Why?’, and I started bringing clarity to that side of things.”
“Now I know why I’m doing what I’m doing. I feel much more comfortable, and now, it doesn’t matter on the performance anymore. Now, it’s about truly going out there and performing the best that I can.”
Because of his newfound perspective, Brown feels rejuvenated in his career and hopes to carry on with it a bit longer.
“To be honest, I think I’m f—ing hungrier than I ever was,” Brown said. ‘It just wasn’t clear. Again, it was all about the ‘How?’ I think I was hyper-focused on that, like ‘How do I get stronger?’ ‘How do I get faster?’ ‘How do I throw a better punch?’
“It’s just constant ‘Hows’, and you forget, like ‘Why are you doing this, anyway?’”
Brown is currently slated to co-headline the UFC’s FOX card in Glendale, Arizona on April 14th against Carlos Condit.
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