‘The Immortal’ Among Us

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After being kicked out of his father’s house in his early 20s, Matt briefly moved in with Josh, between army stints, showing up at his door carrying nothing more than a handful of clothes in his arms, with no money and no job. Matt needed to be smacked around a little more by faulty decisions and see his problems mount before he addressed them. He likes extreme, and he got it.

“I almost died a few times,” Matt said. “One time I woke up in a ditch. I was so drunk that I missed the house I was supposed to go to and fell asleep. It was so cold that I could have died of hypothermia. The night I OD’d is still a blur. I can’t for the life of me remember why I was at this guy’s house. We drove to Dayton, and I didn’t know that much about heroin. I only did it five or six times. The guy I was with was doing everything. We drove over into this back alley behind some abandoned houses and did it right there.

“The girl driving with us was either a nurse or going to school to become a nurse, and at some point I blacked out in the front seat,” he added. “I don’t know what transpired, but she knew. She drove me to this hospital and left me there. When you’re hanging out with those kinds of people, they’re not really your friends. Thank God for her, though, because she knew something was wrong. The guy who hooked me up told me later it was way more heroin than he ever did before. The doctor treating me told me I was clinically dead for about a minute.

“I got out of the hospital and was looking for a place to stay that night,” he continued. “My family didn’t even know about this until 2012. I’ll tell you how [expletive] up I was. I remember being told I almost died and telling myself, ‘I’m sticking to cocaine. I wasn’t going back to heroin again.’ That’s the kind of mentality I had back then. I had no idea.”

Another time a “so-called friend” dropped him off stumbling drunk in front of his parent’s house when the family was living in Washington Court House, Ohio. Matt, around 20 then, saw that the lights were on. There was no way he would enter the house in that condition. His Plan A was to wait until everyone was asleep and sneak in. His subconscious interfered. He kept dreaming about a train coming at him. When he woke, he had no idea where he was, except to look up to see a train rumbling in his direction -- about 20 yards away.

“I have no idea what prompted me to take a nap there on the train tracks,” Matt said, laughing. “The tracks were close to the house and I was tired, but that was typical of my life then. My first fight, I was ‘coked’ up out of my mind, but I never went through rehab. You can say I went cold turkey rehabbing myself. I’d still party [and] then I would cut it down and cut it down some more. Then I’d party just on the weekends. I got certain people out of my life, and then I didn’t party at all.”

* * *
By 2003, a transformation was taking shape. Matt was holding down a menial factory job at Marzetti’s in Columbus, Ohio. Josh was attending Ohio State University -- and noticing his brother carrying a gym bag everywhere, often coming home bruised with an occasional black eye.

Steadily, Matt rose through the dysfunctional feeder system of Southern Ohio MMA, fighting in warehouses, backyards and parking lots. Matt paid to fight, sometimes as much as $1,200, which he borrowed. Compounding those expenses was the fact that he was fighting with no health insurance, enduring a broken jaw and limping around the house with a strained knee.

“I didn’t say anything, I kept my mouth shut, but I had problems with the whole thing,” Josh said. “Matt was watching these MMA fights, and I really didn’t know much about it at the time. I saw it as human cock fighting. Then one day he asked me to go and watch him fight. It started like that.

“I think there are a lot of miracles. He’s lucky he survived through a part of his life, and he knows it,” he added. “Matt just happens to carry this attitude that he’s nothing special. That’s what he would say. He gets annoyed when people treat him like a celebrity. Matt can send a message; he can be an inspiration. He is. What’s powerful is that he would be just as much a role model without all that success in the cage, because he’s taken innate qualities that were always there and focused them in the right direction.”

Through his new prism of MMA, Matt was introduced to a different world. He met his wife, Colleen, in Las Vegas right after he was signed by the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Colleen and their twin sons, 3-year-olds Connor and Hunter, are the center of his life. This Matt Brown is someone different -- or is he?

“The kids have slowed Matt down; I would agree with that, but the best way to describe it is, if there was a dirt bike in the garage, Matt would be the first to jump on it and whatever was risky, he would be the first to get into it,” Josh said. “His actions are far more measured now than they used to be.”

Then Josh relayed a story. They were returning from a bar in 2009 and Matt was driving around a residential neighborhood like a madman. Josh raised hell over the way Matt was moving.

“He didn’t think anything was wrong, but today, Matt lives in that very neighborhood and there is no way you’d ever catch him driving like that again,” Josh said. “I’m proud of him, both of them, Ben and Matt. It’s amazing to have two guys like that as brothers. I don’t know what I would do without them.”

Lawler lies ahead. Is he more potent than a minute of death? Not to Matt Brown.

“If you know Matt Brown, it’s not a surprise that he is still alive today,” said Dorian Price, one of Matt’s trainers who lives in Thailand. He has known Brown since 2004 and only returns to the United States to work exclusively with him. “I know Matt’s backstory. I think Matt Brown would beat up the Grim Reaper. What happened to Matt made him who he is. Our past is what makes our present and our future. I would say Matt carries a fearlessness, being on the outside looking in; it’s the presence of fear and the ability to continue on the course and look beyond that that makes a champion. Matt possesses the ability to stay inside himself and stay the course. Fighting is the purest of sports, because it tells you the truth about yourself. Matt Brown knows who he is.”

Bo eventually found out, too, long enough to see Matt begin his climb on the MMA ladder. Bo Brown, however, died of cancer in 2009 before he could see his son’s true trajectory. Matt feels some regret over that.

“I never did apologize to anyone; maybe it’s something I should do,” he said. “There is no question I could think of things that I can go back on that I should regret, but anything in life is a building block. The fact is, I’m happy with who I am today. I wish my dad could have been around to see more of my success. I don’t feel a need to go apologize, though, when I can go and show my family and friends where I am. Thanks for staying with me. Thanks for believing.

“My dad was a very traditional country guy, and his answer was tough love,” he added. “Honestly, I think it was the best thing for me. The lessons he taught were the best I ever learned. My dad went by the way he was taught. What he did on me didn’t work -- but eventually, it did. It just took longer for things to sink in. My brothers don’t even know some of the s--- I put my dad through.”

“The Immortal” persona did not surface until a friend joked, “You’re [expletive] immortal, after some of the stories I told him,” Matt said. “That stuck in my head. The more I thought about it, the more meaning it had for me, not just the actual mortal or spiritual immortality, but my mind is immortal.”

Just off center, tugging at him quietly is the lure. Addicts are never fully cured. They continue to take steps every day, the specter of the next high forever lurking. Matt’s fight goes on. Correcting the mistakes of his 11 losses keeps him in ready mode. Before, the focus was on negating what his opponents did well. Now, the thrust is on what he does well to win. Matt Brown, “The Immortal,” bleeds into Matt Brown the man.

“There are times I still deal with a yearning,” he admits. “To me, it’s not so much about the drugs themselves but a part of me that is self-destructive. It’s not an uncommon trait in people. You place so much work into self-psychoanalyzing and think you have control of it, but there is always going to be a desire. I still have an addictive, self-destructive personality. I know it. You tell me not to do something -- I’ll still do it. I still work on it to this day. Part of what I love about MMA is the reality of the sport. It’s a matter of how you control it.

“If I have a positive aura about me, my wife and kids will see it. Positive energy, I believe, bounces back,” he adds. “It’s why I don’t concern myself with materialistic things. All my lessons come from fighting. I don’t see how there is any other way you find out about yourself, until you’ve been in a fight. My life would be incomplete without it. I’ve already been to the bottom, and I’m always going to get back up. It doesn’t matter what happens, I’m not going anywhere. I hope I can inspire people, but the story isn’t finished. Hell no, it’s not finished. To me, the story is just beginning. I’m still at the intro.”