During his appearance on Monday’s edition of Ariel Helwani’s MMAFighting.com show, “The MMA Hour,” UFC Welterweight contender Matt Brown turned heads when he publicly related to Ronda Rousey’s comments about wanting to commit suicide after her loss to Holly Holm when he was stopped by Jake Ellenberger in his last fight.
Brown explained to Helwani why wins and losses aren’t the main focus for him in fights, claiming he just likes to know on Sunday that he gave it his all. As “The Immortal” told Helwani on Monday, his quick stoppage loss to the longtime veteran bothered him more than than most of his losses inside the Octagon.
“That was probably the toughest loss of my career and I’ll tell you why,” Brown told Helwani regarding his first-round TKO loss to Ellenberger at UFC 201 back in July. “My reasoning is that wins and losses have never been a huge thing to me, they have never been the primary focus. I just want to do the best I can, and be happy with myself on Sunday because I know I gave it my all, win or lose. That one I felt I didn’t give it all I had. I think I took it way for granted, and I didn’t show Jake enough respect and I learned the hard way.”
As Brown continued, he made the headline-grabbing comments about relating to Rousey’s reaction to her first Octagon loss to Holm, explaining that suicide did run through his thoughts while he was dealing with the crushing defeat.
“I delt with it really tough,” Brown said. “It was a tough one. You know, 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. You know, 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, obviously, but of course I guess it’s more of an expression that you really do feel that low at that time.”
Check out the complete Matt Brown interview with Ariel Helwani from Monday’s edition of “The MMA Hour” at MMAFighting.com.
