Matt ‘The Immortal’ Brown appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour and talked about the pain of losing, voicing empathy for Ronda Rousey, who admitted that after her first MMA loss, she momentarily felt like committing suicide. He also discussed getting older in the fight game. Last year he had his first concussion, and this year, he got dropped for the first time ever, vs. Jake Ellenberger at UFC 201.
“That was the first time in my entire life that I have been dropped by a head shot,” said Brown, as transcribed by Thomas Myers for MMA Mania. “In sparring — at any time in my life — street fights, anything. I see people all the time coming back too soon and saying they shouldn’t have. Of course, you see the boxers, which has been well documented for years with concussions and brain injuries.
“I had a concussion last year for the first time in my life. It’s no fun, it was serious. I wasn’t finishing sentences to my kids sometimes — I actually fell over, which is when my wife told me I had to go to the doctor. I literally got up and fell down. Things like that happen and you begin to realize like, man, this sport is real. This ain’t just fun and games and a paycheck anymore.”
Losing to Ellenberger wasn’t fun and games either.
“I dealt with it really tough,” said Brown. “I probably felt like Ronda Rousey — I wanted to kill myself, which is after every loss, you know … we’re all the same. But, you know what? I have three kids and I had to come home and be a role model to them. I had to get up the next morning and make breakfast, and show them that no matter how many times you get taken down, you get your ass up and do it again.”
“Well, my point I guess is that you really do feel like you want to kill yourself. You feel like that low of a person. You get beat up like that in front of millions of people, your friends and family. It’s not right to feel that way — and you shouldn’t feel that way — but you do feel that way. I’m fortunately mature enough to be able to handle those feelings and not act on them, but I guess it’s more of an expression that you really do feel that low at that time.”
