Wanderlei Silva was disqualified for repeated fouls in his boxing match against Acelino Freitas this past weekend, and then he was brutally knocked out during a post-fight melee that sent the UFC and PRIDE legend to the hospital with numerous injuries.
While no one could have predicted that a brawl would break out after the fight, Silva even setting foot in that ring at 49 years old after filing a letter this past year during the UFC antitrust lawsuit settlement stating that he feared during his career he may have “suffered traumatic brain injury” and he’s exhibiting symptoms consistent with CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), had many concerned about his longterm health. Matt Brown, who retired from fighting in 2024 after spending 15 years in the UFC, was saddened to see an all-time great like Silva endure that kind of damage after already absorbing an incredible amount of punishment during the prime of his fighting career.
That’s why Brown issued a rather emphatic warning to his fellow fighters after watching Silva risk potential life- changing injuries by even attempting to compete at this stage of his career.
“Unfortunately, no fighter is going to listen to coaches or friends or family and be like ‘you shouldn’t do it’ and they’ll be like ‘I’ll prove you wrong,’” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “That’s what gets fighters to level they’re at is proving people wrong. No one believes when you start your first amateur MMA fight that you’re going to be a UFC champion either. That’s what we live off of, that feeling.
“I just encourage all these fighters, anyone listening, any fighter that hears this, you’ve got to be more than just a fighter. Your identity just has to be more than that. Now when you’re in there fighting, you have to be only a fighter. When you’re actively competing, trying to work towards a championship, you don’t need to be distracted in your mind and all your eggs need to be in that basket. You can’t have a single egg in another basket. But when it’s time to hang it up, you’ve got to find something else. You have to.”
In the days leading up to his fight, Silva didn’t sound concerned about his long-term health after originally signing to fight fellow UFC veteran Vitor Belfort in the boxing match.
As much as Silva surely wanted the chance to throw down in the fight, he was also getting paid for the appearance and that undoubtedly played a part in his decision to compete again.
Brown understands the financial constraints on athletes after retirement but that’s just another reason why he begs fighters to find something else to do before it’s too late.
“Wanderlei probably got paid pretty decent, but there’s other ways to make money,” Brown said. “I’ve struggled with this myself. You feel like you’re almost too good to do something else. Like I go into my own gym and people are like amazed that I’m in my gym. Like ‘bro, I didn’t think you’d be here!’ Do you think I just travel the world and make millions of dollars everywhere I go? That is what people think, I think. They think I should be living in Miami with Rolex’s and beautiful women around all the time and that’s just not the case.
“We don’t get paid what they think we get paid from the UFC. I know casuals or regular people aren’t following the sport, the news and the media that closely. So when we’re talking about things like the lawsuit where we found out how much people are actually getting paid. These people don’t know that shit. We see guys like Conor [McGregor], we see other fighters and we see them on social media and we see what we think their lives are like and well he’s living life like this, I can’t be this cheeseball here living like this! We have to get past that.”
No matter how much Silva got paid for the fight, Brown knows the risk is never worth the reward when you’re talking about absorbing the kind of damage that you can’t walk away from.
There’s a world where Silva takes another punch and he doesn’t get up again, which is why Brown cautions him and every other fighter in a similar situation to think about those things before just running head first into the fire again.
“There’s something with these fighters where they just can’t get past them being a fighter,” Brown said. “We have to recognize this isn’t a lifetime sport. The martial arts can be. I’m dedicated to the martial arts for life. But you can’t be a fighter for such a long time. You only get one brain. You could get your limbs broken. You could get your legs torn off, but when your brain starts going, you don’t have anything left.
“We’ve got to remember that. Your health is by far is the single most important thing in your life. By a large margin. We sacrifice all of our health to chase wealth, and then we get the wealth, I don’t think there’s a single person that wouldn’t trade it all back for their health.”
Of course, Silva isn’t alone when it comes to fighters taking these kinds of chances, but Brown believes all of them are capable of so much more than just taking punches for a living.
Perhaps Brown’s best advice is taking that same energy, focus and passion that went into fighting and channeling that towards something different. Because like it or not, fighting can’t last forever.
“It sucks. You’ve got find another identity,” Brown said. “I don’t mean to get on some TED talk or some shit but that’s what it is. We get so stuck on this identity that we’re a fighter, and we feel like there’s nothing else we’re good at, nothing else we can do.
“I think a lot of guys should go back and remember when they first started fighting and how much they sucked at it and the amazing things that we accomplish doing something that difficult. You can take that energy and put it into something else and you can do great things elsewhere, too. Don’t narrow yourself down to just simply being a fighter. We can be more than that.”