(Well, maybe 100-1.)
Over the weekend, we announced that TUF 7 alum Matt Brown, who most recently starched Chris Cope at UFC 143, would be squaring off against world renowned kickboxer Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson at UFC 145. Thompson, who is coming off a brilliant head kick KO victory in his octagon debut over Daniel Stittgen, also at UFC 143, amassed an incredible 57 victories as a kickboxer without a defeat before transitioning into MMA, where he has gone 6-0 thus far in his career. Well it seems that Brown isn’t too impressed with “Wonderboy’s” list of credentials, mainly due to a lack of name power in Thompson’s past opponents. Here’s what he told MMAWeekly in a recent interview:
I don’t know what he’s about in MMA. It looked to me he was doing the same old karate, and the karate’s the same thing, like who did he fight in karate? I don’t know. Name me one guy, name me one guy that he fought. I can tell you the guys I train with [have fought] Saenchai [and] Joe Schilling, guys that are well known in the kickboxing/Muay Thai world, on a world level…I’m not too concerned with this guy’s kickboxing. I can go 100-0 beating a bunch of idiots, but that’s not my style.
Ouch. The verbal back-and-forth between these two apparently started after Thomspon was awarded the $65,000 Knockout of the Night bonus following his UFC 143 win over Stittgen. Upset that he didn’t receive the award, Brown stated that Stittgen didn’t really deserve to be in the octagon with Thompson in the first place, whereas he fought a tougher guy in Chris Cope, and therefore should have earned the bonus.
And to a degree, we agree with him. Stittgen was brought in on just over a week’s notice to take on Thompson, whereas Cope had a full training camp to prepare for Brown. Then again, Thompson was only given four weeks himself to prepare for a fighter whose strengths were the exact opposite of his, whereas Brown was given basically a less talented version of himself in Cope. In either case, Thompson didn’t take kindly to Brown’s criticism, and it’s looking like we will be in for a good old fashioned ATL throwdown at UFC 145, which is headlined by a light heavyweight title fight between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans (finally), as well as a battle of top welterweight prospects Che Mills and Rory MacDonald.
To be fair, Brown did complement Thompson’s fighting style, saying it was puzzling and Machida-esque in its appearance, but at the end of the day, believed “it’s the same old shit to me.”
Check out the rest of Brown’s interview below.
-J. Jones