Matt Brown was already an 11-fight UFC veteran when he got the call to face Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson in his second appearance in the octagon.
At the time, Thompson was a highly touted prospect with an undefeated record across his combat sports career and he got even more attention after delivering a brutal knockout in his debut. In many ways it felt like Brown was being set up as a stepping stone to help build Thompson’s career but the fight played out much differently than expected.
Brown scored
numerous takedowns and ultimately won a unanimous decision after three hard-fought rounds.
“I was actually the first one to beat him, period,” Brown recounted on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “If you don’t count the Raymond Daniels fight where he tore his ACL and appealed it to make it a no contest, even though it was actually a loss but whatever. I’ll allow that to be a no contest so I can say I was the first person to defeat him.”
Brown remembers trying to use a Jon Jones technique to open the fight but it nearly backfired after Thompson attempted to kick him in response.
“What sticks out the most, I guess the first thing I started thinking about with that fight, I was always surprised the commentators didn’t say anything about this, when I walked out my game plan was if you remember The Ultimate Fighter, somebody was fighting Pete Spratt and they’re like ‘bro just come out with your hand down so he can’t kick you.’ I did that,” Brown wsaid. “I walked out sort of like Jon Jones does where he crawls out and I had my hand down and he went to side kick me in the face and I’m like you can’t do that, my hand’s down.
“The ref didn’t say anything, the commentators didn’t say anything. I guess I didn’t sell it enough. That’s my first thing.”
After that, Brown recounts how effective his wrestling was against “Wonderboy,” who has always been best known for his elite striking and not necessarily his grappling skills.
“The next thing I was I started going for takedowns a little bit and I was like this guy’s not strong at all,” Brown said. “This is going to be pretty easy. Of course, it was not easy. He actually put up a really good fight.”
Following the three round battle with Brown getting the win, both fighters were advised to go to the hospital for precautionary reasons.
The only problem — the UFC only had one ambulance available so the fighters had to share that space to get to the hospital.
“They only had one ambulance in the back but we both needed to go to the hospital,” Brown said. “I had a pretty bad headache, he was completely f*cked up from top to bottom, so we both go in the same ambulance. As we’re driving away, his dad is in the ambulance talking about a f*cking rematch. In the f*cking ambulance. I was like I’ll rematch you right now, bro. We can finish it. We don’t even have to rematch. We can just finish it right now.
“That was one of the most insulting things I’d ever heard. There was no ‘good job man, respect.’ It was just like ‘we’re going to start working towards a rematch.’ I was like we can just finish it.”
Of course, “Wonderboy” admits it was his dad asking for that immediate rematch but he still has fond memories looking back at that battle with Brown.
“We were in the ambulance together, it was my dad [asking for the rematch],” Thompson told MMA Fighting. “We beat the crap out of each other. I remember him telling me in the ambulance ‘you knocked me out and woke me up.’ I’m like don’t tell me that! We were banged up. We were so banged up. That was epic.”
