Mike Brown: No Clowning Inside The Cage

By Frank Curreri

For years, Mike Brown has owned a bachelor’s degree in biology. He’s hoping he never has to use it on a resume.

Brown stumbled upon his current profession just as he was about to graduate from Norwich University in Vermont. A roommate invited him to compete in an MMA competition.

“My plan was to train for the fight and then after that I’d get a job working in a lab,” said Brown, a former Division III wrestler and high school state champ.

After winning that first fight, Brown told himself, “I’m gonna do one more.” With each passing fight, he kept telling himself the same thing.

Eight years and 22 fights later, Brown’s next “one more” is a June 1 bout against Jeff Curran. Both veterans have expressed a mutual respect for the other and have steered clear of any trash talking or bold predictions about how they will seize victory. But Brown (18-4) has a hunch about how the fight will unfold.

“I got a strong feeling it’ll be a lot of standup,” the 32-year-old said. “I’m not easy to take down and I’m not eager to take him down because his strength is on the ground.”

Not that Brown is a slouch on the ground. Though heavy-handed, half of his wins have come by submission. Jeff Curran is a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Brown is a purple belt; but Brown trains at the vaunted American Top Team in Florida, meaning he regularly rolls against the likes of Marcelo Garcia, Kurt Pellegrino, Marcus Aurelio and Gesias Cavalcanti, among a host of other big names.

It’s easy to underestimate Brown’s ferocity and competitiveness if you see him away from the gym setting. Even during a phone interview, his buddies can be overheard in the background trying to distract and get a rise out of him. It’s how they get their kicks. “Leave me alone!” Brown yelled to his hecklers. Then he continued with his phone conversation like nothing ever happened.

“I’m about having fun. I like to goof around with my friends, I don’t like to be serious,” Brown said. “I like when guys are goofing around, making fun of each other, just cracking jokes and being clowns. I like that. Me and my girl we like to go out a lot and we’re big into comedy clubs. I dress up and wear wigs to clubs and stuff. We go out in the wigs and act really serious. People don’t know what to make of it. We get a real kick out of that.”

Being such a zany, free spirited kind of guy, you would naturally expect Brown to have some colorful or catchy nickname. Oddly enough, he doesn’t have one. He just fights under the blasé moniker “Mike Thomas Brown,” using his middle name to distinguish himself from various other Mike Browns in the fight game. He has had nicknames in the past, but it was a revolving door. At one point he was Mike “Mayhem” Brown – because the word “Mayhem” rhythmically matched with Mike. That didn’t stick. Then there was the nickname “Friday the 13th.” That didn’t last. Then there was Mike “Hold ‘Em Down” Brown, inspired by his suffocating top game. That was short-lived, too.

He’s gone through a lot more jobs in his life than nicknames.

“I’ve had some (expletive) jobs,” Brown said. “I would get these jobs that allowed me to scrape by and train. I was pumping gas, I was a produce clerk. The worst job I had was as a mover, I did that for a summer. That sucked, lugging (expletive) everyday. I mowed the lawns for a cemetery one summer. My final job, what I did before I did this, I worked as a merchandiser for Budweiser. I was going into supermarkets and stocking. But I kept taking time off for fighting so they finally fired me.

“I love this stuff (fighting) so much. It’s the greatest sport in the world. I’d hate to have to go and get a real job.”

Brown, who once flirted with the idea of being a doctor, said he still kicks himself for going to a pricey private college. If he knew way back when what he knows now, he would have at least attended a less expensive public university, and perhaps not still owe $25,000 toward his tuition.

His biology degree, for the most part, has been completely useless toward his MMA gig. But it does come in handy if someone has a rash on their body. He’s the guy people other fighters seek out to diagnose whether they have ringworm, a staph infection or a virus.

“I correct people and tell them, ‘Ringworm is a fungus, not a bacteria,’” he said. “That’s probably about it.”