Randy Brown claims he was in danger just over a minute into his fight against Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos at UFC 302.
Brown displayed impressive striking and weathered the wrestling moves of dos Santos to win by unanimous decision. Brown revealed that he broke his leg 70 seconds into the bout when a tee kick landed on dos Santos’ elbow. “Rude Boy” limped off shortly after but was able to hide the injury from then on. Brown claims that his entire right side was paralyzed and that he was forced to control all of the action with his lead hand.
“Look, you see how I came out in the first round. Look at the fight and make it 3 minutes and 50 seconds. [mark on the fight clock] “In the first round,” Brown said on “The MMA Hour.”
“I did a front kick, it hit his elbow and I heard a pop. My leg was broken, I went from 100 pounds to 50 pounds, and I was fighting with one hand the whole time. I couldn’t twist, so I tried to twist once and I nearly fell over, and I had to hold on with that one hand. But [high] When I face fighters of skill, I adjust and I get it done.”
Between rounds, Brown told his cornerback about the injury, and the coach encouraged Brown to overpower dos Santos with his lead hand. It looked like they had the technique down.
“I was whispering in my coach’s ear between rounds and he didn’t care… what was I going to do, he was just motivating me,” Brown said. “He was like, ‘Hey, I don’t care, use your lead hand. Lead hand refinement. This is what we practice and this is all about learning lead hand refinement. Beat that motherfucker with one hand,’ and that’s what we did.”
Brown has won three straight bouts and is 7-1 in his last eight bouts, with his lone loss coming against Jack Della Maddalena.
