Matt Brown on Cowboy: “Not a friend, I don’t care for him”

Published on Thursday, 12/8/16, at 1:28 p.m. Eastern.

Loyal readers know that Matt Brown is probably my favorite UFC fighter and Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone is one of my top 3-4 favorite fighters. Therefore, Saturday’s co-main event at UFC 206 in Toronto has me salivating.

My first reaction upon hearing the news was this:

Hide the women & children: Matt Brown vs. Cowboy Cerrone at #UFC206 in Toronto. Yes please, I’ll have some of that.

— Brian Edwards Sports (@vegasbedwards) November 11, 2016

You can check out Brown’s media scrum yesterday at this link over at MMAFighting.com. Most of Brown’s remarks about Cerrone start at the 7:30 mark. When told that Cerrone mentioned to the media that Brown gave him a cold shoulder on Tuesday, Brown had this response.

“I didn’t see him yesterday, but I will give him the cold shoulder. I mean, I’ve talked to him before, but that doesn’t make him a friend. So, I don’t care for him, I don’t care for his personality. Even when I talked to him I didn’t want to talk to him, I was just being cordial. I don’t have any good feelings towards him at all. I don’t like the way he acts, I don’t like the way he carries himself, and I don’t like the way he represents the sport.”

At the beginning of the scrum, a media member dubbed Cerrone as a former training partner and a friend. Brown interrupted immediately and said, “Not a friend. Never been a friend, no. I’ve trained with him once, maybe two times.”

Brown (20-15 MMA, 13-9 UFC) has lost four of his last five since a seven-fight winning streak had him in contention for the welterweight strap. Nevertheless, ‘The Immortal’ is secure in his roster spot with a half-dozen fights left on his contract that he signed earlier this year.

Brown is off one of the most disappointing performances of his career, a first-round KO loss to Jake Ellenberger at UFC 201. There was no shame in the three previous losses in which he was a heavy underdog against Demian Maia, Johny Hendricks and Robbie Lawler. Brown went the distance with both Lawler and Hendricks, both of whom are former UFC welterweight champs.

Meanwhile, Maia has won six consecutive fights and has been due a title shot for months.

Most books are listing Cerrone as a -275 ‘chalk,’ while Brown is a +230 underdog. In the past, Brown has posted a slew of wins as a considerable underdog, including scalps of Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson (+190), Jordan Mein (+270), John ‘Doomsday’ Howard (+220), Erick Silva (+185) and Mike Swick (+130).

The ‘over/under’ is 2.5 rounds (‘over’ -125, ‘under’ +105). I’m all about the ‘under’ for five units! (These savages can’t survive more than 12.5 minutes with each other – no way!)

I had no idea that any bad blood existed between Cerrone and Brown, but Brown left zero doubt about that during the rest of yesterday’s scrum. Additional remarks include the below:

“No it’s just his personality, you can see the way he talks,” he said. “He wants to be an alpha male and he really wants to portray himself as something special. And I think it’s all these yes men he’s got around him, I think he’s just being lied to by them telling him, ‘Donald you’re the champion man, you’re so good, you’re so great, you’re going to be this and that.’ Really he’s just being lied to. It’s my job to come in there and expose that truth out of him.”

“Most of my opponents I’m really respectful to, and I think they’re respectful to me, but I take…I don’t know if he means it or not, I don’t know maybe he’s just a douche bag of a person, but I get that feeling when he’s talking to other people, especially other fighters, he feels like he’s above other people,” he said. “And he’s kind of bully, you know what I mean? You watch his fights where he lost where he got bullied back, and he didn’t like that. That’s what I got to do to him.

“I just think his whole thing is based on lies. A lot of people fall into that, but I ain’t falling into it.”

I can’t wait for Brown-Cerrone and don’t be surprised if we get a Fight of the Year candidate.