Matt Brown explains why it’s so hard for Paul Felder — or any other fighter

Matt Brown has been there before.

Back in 2017, the Ohio native declared his plans to retire from MMA following a fight scheduled against Diego Sanchez. Brown scored a vicious first-round knockout in what was supposed to be the final bout of his career.

Just over two years later, Brown returned to compete again.

Because he’s gone through it himself, the now 42-year-old veteran understands the difficulty surrounding fighters retiring and staying retired, which is why he wasn’t totally shocked to hear Paul Felder suddenly decide that he might compete again after he called it a career just over two years ago.

“Never trust a fighter when he says he’s retired,” Brown said on The Fighter vs. The Writer. “Motherf****** ain’t never really retired. That’s just a fact. We’re never actually retired. There’s always something that can get us back if you’re a real fighter.”

When it came to his own retirement, Brown felt an intense loss from no longer fighting, which he believes serves as a common denominator amongst all athletes at the end of a career.

For all the ways Brown has set himself up for success outside the cage, nothing can ever replace the feeling that he gets setting foot inside the cage to do battle with another man. Until that specific moment can be duplicated, Brown says all fighters will still get the itch to fight again.

“It was about six months later and I was like this f****** sucks and I want to get back out there and fight again,” Brown said. “That itch, when you step in there into that octagon and you fight another man, there’s just no way to replace that and there’s just a huge hole left in you. I don’t know how you can possibly replace that.

“It’s hard to find a purpose. It’s hard to find a direction. A lot of guys go through a depression. Mark Coleman’s a perfect example. He never officially retired but when he quit fighting, he had no direction in life. Like what do I do with myself? This is who I am. This is my identity. I think it’s a complicated thing.”

In Felder’s case when he stopped fighting, he actually found some purpose while dabbling in acting, which included appearances on the Emmy winning HBO series Hacks.

Of course, Felder also became a vital part of the UFC broadcast team where he routinely serves as color commentator for numerous cards throughout the year.

As much as those jobs may have satiated Felder’s bank account with fighting gone, Brown knows that being around the sport in any way, shape or form only makes it that much harder to actually walk away.

“Paul Felder sits in that booth every week and watches these guys and he’s an excellent commentator but you know every time in the back of his mind he’s like ‘I could take that guy … oh I see the mistake he’s doing,’” Brown said. “So you’re studying these fights all the time and you see all the mistakes and you’re like I could go do that again. It’s like what am I doing with myself?

“When I retired for instance, I opened a gym. I was still around it every day. It’s like why am I doing this s*** and not going and fighting? So Felder’s probably very similar. He’s watching it everyday. He’s still very involved in the sport but he’s just doing the one thing that got him into the sport that he wanted to do at 15 years old or whatever.”

Brown acknowledges that money could also play a factor no matter how much success any fighter found while still actively competing.

While some athletes definitely struggle financially post-retirement, Brown says it’s not as much about going broke as just earning a sizable paycheck that can’t be equaled in almost any other job outside the cage.

“You’re not going to get your [return on investment] on something else the way you can once you start making some money in the sport,” Brown explained. “Like I make $125,000 and $125,000 so if I win, I get $250,000. If I lose I make $125,000.

“There’s nothing else I can do where I can put my life on hold for two months and go make $125,000 minimum, potentially make $250,000 or $300,000 and you’re doing what you love so much.”

Regardless of money, Brown still took his retirement seriously and he expects Felder did the same until something eventually clicked that made fighting seem like a real option again.

It’s a feeling only fighters would understand, which is why Brown wasn’t surprised at Felder’s decision much less anybody else opting to compete again after calling it a career.

“When he walked away, he probably had every plan to walk away,” Brown said. “I did the same thing. When I retired, I had every plan to walk away but when you’ve got that inside of you, how do you get rid of it? You’ve got to create an entirely new identity for yourself. You’re no longer a fighter. That’s not who you are anymore. That’s who you were.

“Joseph Benavidez was an interesting one and I talked with him about it a little bit. He doesn’t even go into the gym anymore. I think he said he will for his friends or to help out somebody that he likes or something like that but he doesn’t even really go train. He’s like ‘I don’t even want to be around it’ and so when you can step that far away, you might even need to do that.”