‘Rude’ Awakening

Randy Brown looks, acts and sounds like a finely tuned mixed martial artist who has grown fond of what he sees in the mirror. Self-doubt, it seems, has become less and less of an issue.

“Rude Boy” will make his 17th appearance in the Ultimate Fighting Championship when he meets Muslim Salikhov in a three-round UFC Fight Night 235 welterweight showcase on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Now in his ninth year on the roster, Brown joined the promotion as an unproven 25-year-old prospect with all of six pro bouts under his belt. He admits his was a baptism by fire.

“I’ve been here. I grew up here,” Brown said at the pre-fight media day for UFC Fight Night 235. “I came into the UFC when I was 6-0. I was a baby. I was not ready. They threw me in there, and it was sink or swim, and I swam. I swam my ass off. I’m here and I’m growing, and everyone saw me trip up along the way [and] saw me have success. I’m a different guy [today]. I’m a different animal–completely.”

Those early days were marked by potential and uncertainty, along with few hiccups, most notably a rear-naked choke submission loss to Michael Graves and a unanimous decision defeat to Belal Muhammad. Yet Brown stayed the course, plugged along through prosperity and adversity, took the good with the bad and slowly but surely established himself as a viable welterweight at the sport’s highest level. True vindication, however, was found in the gym, not in the cage.

“There was a moment. Oddly enough, it didn’t happen in a fight,” Brown said. “It started to happen in the rooms, in the practice rooms. You’re training, and the guys are pushing you. You’re thinking you’re doing better in the room. Your day-to-day grind, you’re able to manage training better and become more of just a professional all the way around. My confidence comes from the preparation. Just being in the rooms with some killers and holding your own, that’s really it.”

A former Ring of Combat champion, Brown enters his latest assignment inside the Octagon with an 11-5 record in the UFC. His pairing with Salikhov has been fraught with pitfalls of its own. The two men were originally scheduled to face one another in December, but an illness forced Brown to withdraw, albeit reluctantly.

“I was sick,” he said. “Obviously, I want to fight through it. Coaches are there to kind of keep you from yourself sometimes. The typical stuff: I want to go, [and] they’re like, ‘No.’ You put in all the work. You feel like, damn, you wasted all that work, wasted all that time, wasted all that money going into camp, but we made it happen. It made sense for me to not fight, because if I had fought, I wouldn’t have looked good.”

Once Brown recovered, the toolsy 6-foot-3 Spanish Town, Jamaica, native targeted “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 15 winner Michael Chiesa—still ranked in the Top 15 at 170 pounds—with the thought that Salikhov would either move on to another fight or be out of play due to the Muslim month of Ramadan, which starts March 10 and runs through April 9. Instead, matchmakers offered to rebook them on shorter notice.

“I just want to get in there and scrap. I wanted to fight, and he wanted to fight, as well,” Brown said. “I wasn’t really disappointed. I was just trying to get another fight [with the pivot to Chiesa]. I think that I should be fighting upwards and moving forward into the rankings, given my track record, so I was just trying to fight up. It was a quick turnaround, but I did what I needed to do. We took a week or two to kind of figure out if that was something we wanted to do, if my body was going to respond right. It responded well, so we’re here.”

Salikhov has rattled off 17 victories across his past 20 outings, losing only to Alex Garcia, Jingliang Li and former Cage Warriors Fighting Championship titleholder Nicolas Dalby. Brown holds the 39-year-old Russian in high regard and views him as something of a sleeper in the division.

“I think he’s tremendous. Explosive guy,” he said. “A lot of the newer people don’t really know much about him, but I know what’s up. I’ve been watching him for a while. Dangerous guy. I think he’s still the same guy that he’s been and someone I have to take extremely seriously. I think it’s a tough fight for me. I expect him to come throw the kitchen sink at me, but we’re prepared for it.”

Known for dynamic bursts of flashy offense, the well-traveled Salikhov has nailed down 15 of his 19 career wins by knockout, technical knockout or submission—13 of them inside one round. Melvin Guillard, Nordine Taleb, Andre Fialho, Ivan Jorge and Ricky Rainey highlight his extensive list of victims. Brown plans to have all his bases covered by the time the cage door closes behind him.

“I’m expecting him to bring everything that he brings,” he said. “He brings a fast pace, explosive punches early on [and] explosive kicks. I expect me to just do what I do. Wherever it goes, I want to show that I’m the better fighter. Whether it be in the standup or whether it be on the ground, it does not matter. I’m looking to go in there and dominate.”