After having come up short in his first two UFC bouts in 2020, featherweight TJ Brown was in need of a win when he took on Kai Kamaka at UFC Vegas 25 on May 1 in order to keep his UFC dream alive.
Luckily for Brown, he was able to weather some adversity in his bout with Kamaka and pick up a split-decision victory to notch his first UFC win.
“I put a lot of time in. I went to Glory MMA, switched up my training camp, and went into a war with (Kamaka),” Brown told MMAWeekly.com. “He’s a tough cat. It went back and forth quite a bit, so I’m glad my training camp and all the hard work and discipline paid off.
“I think it was a close fight. I definitely believe I won. As it went to the judges I knew it was a close fight with a lot of back and forth action.”
For Brown, there were multiple feelings that came from picking up his first UFC win.
“I’ve wanted my whole life to be in the UFC, and losing two fights it put a lot of pressure on me, and to get the first UFC I was overwhelmed and happy I was able to pull off the win, and relieve that pressure to get the first win,” said Brown.
Brown credits his success to the changes he made in his camp prior to his bout with Kamaka and joining up with Glory MMA.
Michael Chandler rooting for Conor McGregor to set up first title defense
“It was different for me because I was able to just focus on training,” Brown said. “I wasn’t teaching classes, I wasn’t teaching private lessons, my son wasn’t there, so I able to really just focus on fighting, and I believe it paid off.
“I trained with a lot of high caliber guys out there, and they really exposed some of my weaknesses that I was able to get better on, and gave me some verification on some of the good things I was doing.”
Eager to build off his first UFC win, Brown wants to get in at least a couple more bouts in 2021 and start to work his way up the UFC ranks.
“I’m going to try to get in two or three fights at least,” said Brown. “I want to stay busy. I turned 31 this year, and as I’m getting older I am trying to fight as much as I can, then move on to other areas of my life that I’d like to go for.”
TJ Brown happy to get first UFC win and relieve some pressure