“Blessed,” Brown said when asked how it felt to be back. “If anything, it felt better. It didn’t feel like I was going through the motions like it was just another fight, just another day. I felt much more blessed, I felt a lot more gratitude, and happiness to be in there. That’s something I was so focused on, just trying to be more gracious, enjoy life more. That’s a piece of my evolution, being a more gracious person and being happy with everything that happens, good and bad.”
Fatherhood can do that to you. Also having your passion nearly taken away for good due to injuries can change your outlook, so now that the father of three is back, he’s even more locked into the notion that what matters is today. Not yesterday and not tomorrow. So don’t ask him about where he feels he sits in the welterweight title picture, his last bout in Ohio against Erick Silva in 2014, or what he’s got planned for after the Baeza fight. None of that matters to him anymore.
“Every fight is the first and the last,” said Brown, who did pick up Performance and Fight of the Night honors for his headlining win over Silva in Cincinnati. “This is my first fight, everything in the past means s**t, and it’s my last fight, everything in the future means s**t.”
It’s a stark statement, but thinking that way has liberated Brown.