Griffin: Brown weathered the storm against May

by FORREST GRIFFIN, InsideFighting.com

Updated: May 8, 2008, 8:29 PM EST 4 comments

First of all, I'd like to say that somebody obviously stole my ritalin. I definitely needed to calm down and relax during Matt Brown's fight.

The thing was that Matt Brown had been so fired up during training and it seemed to me on fight day that he wasn't fired up. But in the end, he knew best and weathered the storm against Jeremy May.

I was surprised that Matt was not more aggressive. We knew that Jeremy would come out bombing and that he'd close the distance for Matt. The plan was to move a little bit and find a good spot, hunker down and fire back with power on the chin. I thought that once Matt hit Jeremy, he would go down.

Matt did a great job of covering and moving like we practiced, but there were times where it seemed he had the opportunity to get punches off and get off of his back where he didn't take it.

Think about his first fight if you can remember it — Matt was an animal. He was literally an animal. We called him the Serial Killer.

By the way, I thought the whole thing with his dip was hilarious.

I didn't joke with Matt Brown. How could Jeremy May think it was a good idea to do that? Matt Brown does not give off a "[screw] around vibe."

But back to the fight, not only did I offer a game plan that included being more aggressive, but when I offered the game plan, Matt went along and agreed with it like, "Sounds good."

After the fight I told him, "Maybe you should tell me," when you change up the gameplan. He said, "Well, was going to do this...and I think he will punch himself out." And of course, he was right.

I would have just liked it if we had known he had a different game plan. That would have been fine. It wasn't like I was forceful with my game plan idea.

I just put it out there and kind of asked, "What do you think about this?"

Right after the fight, without knowing he had different plans, I thought he was hurt because of his pace and because I saw him limping around. It turned out that he hurt his foot kicking Jeremy. But he took some shots, gave some shots, especially to the arms, which hurts.

Incidentally, I tried to get him to do some yoga with this yoga instructor who teaches at the Warrior's Gym here in Las Vegas that I take classes with and brought in for about a week. But Matt Brown doesn't do yoga. "I'm going to go lift some weights."

No he didn't say that. He just told me, "It ain't for me," and that was cool. I was just throwing it out there.

Fitting justice?

The win was great for Matt and good for everybody. It was real good for team morale because if Matt had lost that fight we would have all been in shock. It also was kind of a grudge match and those are always good for morale if you win.

I definitely thought Matt was going to win. I thought he was going to beat Jeremy up.

Jeremy's post fight trash talk

Pro athletes of all ilks can be like that. It's important to have a little ego, you kind of have to think you are the best. Good boxing trainers make up an excuse to stop sparring if their fighter has a fight coming up and isn't doing well. They don't want them to get mentally broken.

Whoever had a fight coming up, you kind of let them win without not letting them know you are letting them win so that they are confident heading into their fight.

What's Jeremy May going to do? Say, "I talked a bunch of smack and got my butt kicked"? He has to kind of convince himself that he could have done better.

Me? I'm actually pretty hard on myself, but that's just the way I am. That's the way I was in school and everything growing up. Sometimes in practice, I'll stop and shake my head because I'm pissed off.

But that's not what you should do. Don't spend time worrying about it, just go fix it and go on.

If you are in a good mood, you won't get tired. A buddy of mine says, "If you are in a bad place, smile." It sounds stupid but it's true in a way. If you are tense, nervous and tight it wears you out more.

Matt Brown: What's the big fuss about?

Matt has mental toughness and that's a good thing to have. It really is something that people around you that train with you just pick up. It doesn't have to do with having a great record or anything else. It's about, "This guy doesn't miss workouts, he takes every workout seriously, goes hard and does the right things." It's something that you kind of glean from being around a person.

Luke Zachrich vs. Dan Cramer

It was a good fight, what do you want? It had tons of what you are looking for in a fight.

Luke was in great shape and during the runs in practice, was always out in front. But fight day pressure and nerves kill your conditioning sometimes. If you watch the fight carefully, you will see that he never broke his first wind. Luke never got to that second wind.

I personally was OK after the loss. As far as the guys and what not, obviously the ball was in their court. After losing for the first time, we were all worried like we should have been. The biggest thing losing did was not allow us to set up in advance and get extra time to prepare for match ups.

I want everyone to know that I'm also working on getting some adderall for myself.