Sweet Home Alabama: Hanging with Marcus Brimage in His Hometown
I had the chance to hang out with UFC featherweight Marcus “The Bama Beast” Brimage this week while he was in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Marcus was putting in work at Spartan Fitness in Birmingham, Alabama – specifically helping one of his friends, MMA Heavyweight fighter Joshua Robertson, get ready for a pro fight he has coming up later in the week. Spartan Fitness is what Marcus calls “his secret weapon” when it comes to preparing for, training, and getting ready to do battle. Marcus trains between Spartan and American Top Team in South Florida but pointed out that “I always have Spartan in my corner at every UFC fight”.
Marcus had a very substantial win over a previously unbeaten Jimy Hettes at UFC 152 in Toronto in September 2012. That makes his UFC record a perfect 3:0 with an overall record of 6:1:0. This win bumped him from the #50 spot on the www.fightmatrix.com MMA rankings list to the #35 spot. A particularly nice jump for a pro fighter that is currently in the process of renegotiating his contract with the UFC. Hopefully this substantial leap will not go unnoticed by Dana White.
So when is Marcus scheduled to step into the octagon again? At this point he is not sure. Hopefully he will be headed to UFC 155 in Las Vegas in December or perhaps to Brazil early in 2013; it depends on how the negotiations proceed. A few things though are for certain and Brimage knows it. “They expected me to lose when they threw me in there with Hettes, and that didn’t happen”. In fact, Brimage admits that so far they have expected him to lose every single time and it still hasn’t happened. What about online fan comments that say that he is a “one dimensional” fighter? To which he replied “if I am such a one dimensional fighter then why hasn’t anyone been able to stop me. If I am indeed one-dimensional then my opponent should be able to figure out what my next move is and how to defeat me, and it hasn’t happened yet. You even had people saying that Hettes obviously was not fully recovered from his previous injuries instead of just accepting the fact that he took an ass whipping”. Brimage’s ultimate goal is to wear the UFC Featherweight Championship belt and he is well on his way by handing Hettes his very first career loss and dropping him to #67. As for who in particular he would like to fight next? “makes no difference to me, I will fight anybody that Dana White puts in that octagon against me next”.
I asked Marcus if he pays much attention to the comments and criticisms that automatically come with being in the spotlight. He replied that he used to but one of his trainers, Charles McCarthy, advised Marcus against that. Now Marcus only allows himself to read online comments and posts after a fight not before. “Well my momma said everybody is going to talk about you and criticize you, they even talked about Jesus”. That being the case, now Marcus lets his performance in the octagon speak for him, a statement that certainly can’t be denied.
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