WEC’s Brown a fluke no more

By Brett Okamoto

Thursday, June 11, 2009 | midnight

Mike Brown is hoping history doesn’t repeat itself.

When the current WEC featherweight champion claimed the title in 2008 with a win over the highly popular Urijah Faber, it was widely regarded as a fluke.

The confident Faber, coming off five successful title defenses, got careless and led with an elbow that exposed him to Brown’s knockout punch.

He might as well have knocked himself out.

But when Brown’s arm, not Faber’s, was raised again this past weekend in a unanimous decision win in their rematch at WEC 41, Brown turned around and waited for his well-deserved pat on the back.

Problem was, once again, fans might have put an asterisk on the victory due to the broken hand Faber suffered in the first round of the fight.

“You’re killing me man, you’re killing me,” Brown said from his home in Coconut Creek, Fla., where he trains. “I haven’t heard (Faber) say anything, so I hope there’s no excuses being made this time.

“If that were the case, OK, I could see it where, ‘Well, he broke his hand but he did a great job and toughed it out and fought well.’ But I knocked him out the first time, man. It wasn’t like this was the only time I beat him. You can’t have an excuse for every fight.”

The reality WEC fans might have to face is that Brown just might be that good. After taking the belt from Faber in explosive fashion in 2008, Brown has now defended his title twice, including a submission win over Leonard Garcia at WEC 39.

The Maine native holds a professional record of 22-4-0, including several fights overseas in Japan and a brief trip to the UFC in 2004.

Unfortunately for Brown, while Faber was soaking in the newfound popularity the WEC had to offer, many of his fights never made it to television or to the mainstream fan base.

“It’s like that only because (the Faber fights) are the most televised ones I’ve had,” Brown said. “If you could put all of my fights on TV all the time, people wouldn’t say that. But if there’s only a couple fights floating around on television, that’s what happens.”

That’s just the way it’s been for a fighter who says he always considered himself more of a fan than a participant.

The 33-year-old never had much interest in MMA before watching the fledgling UFC events in 1994. But when he did get hooked, he wasn’t content just watching it from the couch.

Brown enrolled himself in jiu-jitsu classes and worked on improving the wrestling skills he had already developed as a collegiate wrestler. Even as he continued to get better though, it was always for the sake of fun and recreation.

“I had never been in a fight before. I’m not a confrontational person,” Brown said. “I still get e-mails from people that can’t believe it and even when I meet people now, I’ll talk to them for awhile and fighting will come up and they’re like, ‘You’re a fighter? I would have never guessed that.’”

In fact, Brown probably would have never found himself in a ring or Octagon had it not been for his college roommate at Norwich University in Vermont, Gunnar Olsen.

While surfing the Internet one day, Olsen found a Rhode Island-based organization looking for MMA fighters. Brown was talked into enrolling in 2001 and his career officially began.

“When he said we should do it, I was like, ‘Really?’” Brown said. “I thought he was crazy but he convinced me to go. I did it just for fun, just to say that I had done it. But when it was over I was like, ‘Hey, that was cool, let’s do another one.’

“If he hadn’t been surfing the Internet that day, none of this would have probably happened.”

Eight years later, Brown sits atop every ranking of featherweight fighters in the world and earned sponsorships from the likes of Tapout, Bushmaster Firearms and Champion Nutrition. The American Top Team he trains with is considered an elite MMA group.

His journey through small-time tournaments in the United States, competitions in Japan and climb up the WEC ladder has left him feeling he's at the pinnacle of his sport, he says.

Still, it’s evident that the blog posts and message boards regarding his ‘lucky’ victories over Faber do strike a nerve. When asked if he’d fight Faber a third time, Brown said it was up to the fans to decide.

“Maybe down the road. I’d like to fight some other people first,” Brown said. “If it’s what fans want, I’ll fight whoever. As long as people care about it, I just want them to tune in. If people want to see more then we’ll fight again, if people are tired of that fight we’ll move on.”

Even if Brown ends up not getting the love he feels he deserves from the Faber rematch, if he continues fighting like the No. 1 featherweight in the world, fans will have no choice but to come around eventually.

“I’m a world champion, that’s it,” Brown said. “Now you just dig your feet in and hold on as long as you can. Hopefully you leave a legacy or get to be remembered as a champ, not just a guy that won it once and lost it.”

Brett Okamoto can be reached at 948-7817 or [email protected].