In a fight fueled by hunger for the UFC and anger between the two combatants, Team Griffin’s Matt Brown went into the first-round bout with Team Rampage’s Jeremy May with a very strict game plan. Unfortunately, it was a game plan that even his head coach wasn’t aware of.
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“Matt Brown was a violent smashing machine and he just wasn’t turning it on in that fight,” Griffin said. “Here’s this guy that beats everybody up in training, crushes it, he’s in great shape and he’s just kind of floating by in this fight and letting this other kid dictate the pace. I was perturbed by that. Little did I know that his strategy was to let Jeremy May gas out a little bit and then go after him. He didn’t share that with me when we were talking about fight strategies and fight stuff.”
UFC’s ultimate everyman has never had a problem making people laugh. It almost comes naturally. So natural, in fact, that even when he’s trying to demand a fighter to get back to the gameplan mid-fight it ends up being the funniest moment of the season. Unfortunately for Griffin, it wasn’t supposed to make anybody laugh.
“I didn’t even know that it could do that,” Griffin laughed. “I was almost amused that I could do that. It’s not a thing I could do on purpose.”
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With no warning from the crew or his other students that season, Griffin wasn’t aware just how memorably shrill his voice really was while trying to bark orders at the show’s resident badass. When Griffin saw – and heard – the moment, he reacted exactly the way you would imagine he would.
“I still think it’s amusing,” Griffin said. “I don’t even have a high voice. I have a very deep and very odd voice. It’s very distinct, but to hear it go high like that it’s weird. I’m not very loud, actually. Maybe that’s just what happens when I try to be loud. It just breaks.”
As things would work out, Brown ended up becoming one of the welterweight division’s favorite brawlers. Even after a brief retirement, he still captivates crowds at 40 years old. Forrest is still Forrest, as well, and there’s no better example of “Forrest being Forrest” than the lemonade he made with that very lemon in the seventh season of TUF.
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“I’ve used it in presentations as an example of what not to do when cornering someone,” Griffin said. “Not only does it not help the fighter, but it may actually make them panic and worry more. Fighting is exhausting and it’s that mental control and ability to relax yourself that makes guys like an Anderson Silva appear to have such great cardio because of his ability to relax himself. If you frazzle them there’s going to be a higher energy cost and they’re going to make decisions poorer.”
Over a decade later, Griffin is the gift that keeps on giving.
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