UFC welterweight Matt Brown has weighed into the debate around Lauren Murphy’s corner. Specifically, in a recent episode of The Fighter vs The Writer, he discussed their choice to allow the fight to continue despite the damage Murphy was taking in her UFC 283 outing against Jessica Andrade.
Brown admitted that he himself is a “savage motherf***er,” but that he would have been grateful not to take the damage without a shot at victory.
“Savage Motherf***er” Matt Brown Would Have Stopped Murphy vs Andrade
“I’m a savage motherf*****. I want to see head butts brought back. I want to see bare knuckles. I want to see kicks to downed opponents. I want all this stuff but I would also like to see corners be real coaches and be real corners and step up and stop it for their [fighters].
I would never tell my corner don’t stop the fight no matter what or I’m going to fire you if you stop it or something like that. Again, I would be totally angry, I would frustrated and hateful toward my corner for doing that in the moment but 20 years from now, I’m going to say thank you for doing that.”
The way he sees it, making tough calls is the corner’s job. “That’s a corner’s job. If my corner ever stops a fight, I’m going to get pissed at them. But guess what? I’m also going to thank them later, assuming they made a good, educated decision, and that’s one of their primary jobs as a corner is to see a fight objectively knowing your athlete, knowing if there’s a true path to victory for their athlete.
MMA’s crazy right. We’re always like there’s still that chance. Anderson Silva-Chael Sonnen, there’s that chance. That’s rare though and these guys work with corners and they know their athletes so well and they know. They’ve seen them get through these hard practices and come back from injuries and deal with things that are unrealistic for normal people to deal with. In that third, fourth and fifth round, the whole time the corner’s thinking they’ve still got a chance! This is my guy. They’ve still got a chance. I think that’s an egotistical way to look at it.
You have to look at it objectively and your job as a corner, not your primary job but one of your main jobs is to protect your fighter. You see it in boxing. When there’s no longer a clear path to victory for their fighter, they stop it. It’s one thing when there’s no clear path to victory but now there’s not a clear path to victory and you’re taking shots, you have to jump in to stop the fight.”
Is Matt Brown right? Let us know in the comments.
