EXCLUSIVE | Matt Brown explains how he injured ACL, gives timeframe for return

By now, you’ve surely heard the news. Matt Brown has been forced out of his anticipated UFC Glendale scrap with Carlos Condit with an ACL injury, and replaced by Brazil’s Alex “Cowboy” Oliveira. 

On the latest edition of BJ Penn Radio, Brown explained how he sustained the injury that nixed his anticipated war with Condit.

“I was actually just warming up,” he said. “I was defending a single leg. Dude had my leg up in the air and I just planted on my plant leg and I don’t know… Maybe I was fatigued, maybe I got caught on the mat the wrong way. It’s really hard to say. It happened so fast and I wasn’t doing anything crazy, I wasn’t pushing it hard or anything. So, it’s just one of those things, man, and all I can do is come back stronger at this point, so I’m just looking forward to coming back and pushing it hard as I can, to pushing my rehab hard as I can so that I can get back as quickly as possible.”

Brown also updated on his expected recovery process:

“I just left the orthopedic surgeon,” he said. “He went over the MRI with me and everything, and I’m fortunate that it’s only my ACL. There’s nothing else that is torn, nothing else even damaged, and he said that my knee actually looks really healthy. But unfortunately the ACL is a pretty major problem and I’ll be going to surgery next Tuesday.”

“I guess my options are the hamstring graft, the patella graft—which is probably last option—or the cadaver,” Brown continued, discussing the surgery itself. “Those are the only three that I was mentioned, and I’m leaning towards the cadaver, but the doctor actually recommended hamstring. So, I’m talking to some people that have been through it. I was just talking to Joe Lauzon this morning. So, just talking to a few different people, getting their opinions, and doing all my research. [I’ll] do my due diligence and we’ll make a decision before Tuesday, I guess.

“I’ll certainly talk to the UFC doctors, and I’ll talk to as many people as I can. I put an Instagram post this morning and asked my followers what their opinions were and I’ve heard all different angles and good and bad stories from both. So, it doesn’t sound like it’s gonna be a clear-cut way and at this point it sounds like a crap-shoot, really. Just throw darts and pick one and hopefully it works out for the best, but, like I said, I’ll do my due diligence and come to my own conclusion. I have a little bit of time to do it, so no rush.”

So when does Matt Brown expect to be back in the cage? That’s hard to say, but he’s hoping to be back on the mats in 6 months.

“[The doctor] said probably six months to return to any sort of training, which is, from what I understand, pretty standard.”

Here’s hoping Matt Brown has a speedy and straightforward recovery! We know these things can occasionally get complicated!

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 4/5/2018.