Matt Brown Discusses Emotional Retirement Decision

Longtime Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran Matt Brown recently shared his feelings about his decision to hang up his gloves.

While Brown announced his retirement on Saturday via X (formerly known as Twitter), he had informed the UFC of his decision a while back. Despite having arrived at the decision much earlier, Brown was admittedly impassive about it until he had the conversation with UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby.

Brown was waiting to board a flight at Los Angeles International Airport and was admittedly overwhelmed with emotions while informing Shelby of his retirement. “The Immortal” also admitted to feeling similarly emotional while recently announcing his retirement on social media.

“When I first called Sean Shelby and told him, ‘I’m pretty sure this is what I’m gonna do,’ I was at an airport at the time”, the 43-year-old told MMAFighting.com. “This was a few months ago. I was at an airport and I think he returned my call, which is why I was at an airport. I remember sitting there in line getting ready to board the plane and there’s people all over. I was at LAX, I still remember, and I shed a little tear, bro.

“I was like, ‘Damn, I can’t be crying in front of people. What if someone recognizes me? But it hurt bad, man. It was set in my mind. Like I didn’t have any real feelings about it until I actually said it. And then I hung up the phone and yeah, I shed a motherf—-ing tear, man. And I guess I do have tears in there somewhere, that was one time. And it was very similar [Saturday] when I posted that. I said, ‘Damn, it’s f—ing over man.’ Like it’s surreal, bro. It’s hard to believe because a piece of you dies.”

Brown last fought in May 2023, when he knocked out Court McGee in the first round. While Brown was then offered a fight against Max Griffin, “The Immortal” wasn't excited by the offer, which partly influenced his retirement decision. Brown went 17-13 in his UFC career and has the second-most knockouts (13) in the promotion’s history, only behind Derrick Lewis (14). Brown’s nine bonus-winning performances are a UFC welterweight record.