Matt Brown on loss to Jake Ellenberger: 'I probably felt like Ronda Rousey; I wanted to kill myself'

'The Immortal' thought about death following his loss to Jake Ellenberger.

Earlier this year, Matt Brown had never been finished by knockout or technical knockout, but all that changed when he faced Ellenberger at UFC 201 in July. Brown, who was ranked in the top 10 entering the event, suffered a technical knockout loss to Ellenberger, who was 1-5 in his past six bouts and was fighting to stay in the UFC. The 35-year-old welterweight believes that was the toughest moment of his career.

"That was probably the toughest loss of my career and I'll tell you why," Brown explained to Ariel Helwani on Monday's edition of The MMA Hour. "My reasoning is that wins and losses have never been a huge thing to me, they have never been the primary focus. I just want to do the best I can, and be happy with myself on Sunday because I know I gave it my all, win or lose. That one I felt I didn't give it all I had. I think I took it way for granted, and I didn't show Jake enough respect and I learned the hard way.

"The hard thing about this sport is, you know, you have a hard day at the office and, you know, it can be like that where it's a really bad day. So mentally that was the first time in my career I think I had a mental flip up like that, where I just didn't respect my opponent, was overconfident, and I don't like that of myself. I have to go back and change that, and I plan on doing that. So I don't know if I'm going to win my next fight or not, but I know that I'm going to have a lot of respect for my opponent, and I'm going to come in better than I've ever been before and that's all I can ask out of myself."

Leaving the fight with a loss on his record and not feeling like he left everything in the octagon caused Brown to have suicidal thoughts just like Ronda Rousey did following UFC 193.

"I delt with it really tough," Brown said. "It was a tough one. You know, I probably felt like Ronda Rousey; I wanted to kill myself, which is after every loss, you know, we're all the same. But you know what, I have three kids and I had to come home and be a role model to them. I had to get up the next morning and make breakfast, and show them that no matter how many times you get taken down, you get your ass up and do it again.

"Well, my point I guess is that you really do feel like you want to kill yourself. You feel like that low of a person. You get beat up like that in front of millions of people, your friends and family. You know, it's not right to feel that way, and you shouldn't feel that way, but you do feel that way. I'm fortunately mature enough to be able to handle those feelings and not act on them, obviously, but of course I guess it's more of an expression that you really do feel that low at that time."

Brown attributes his loss at UFC 201 for underestimating Ellenberger. 'The Immortal' didn't think his opponent belonged in the cage that night with him, and promises not to make that mistake again, as everything else leading up to the fight was going well.

"I actually trained pretty good," Brown said. "I mean, I had a lot of injuries, but I always train good because I just can't help but get in there and train. In the fight, I mean, normally I stare at my opponent pretty hard and I get pretty pumped up, but I kept looking at him like, 'Man, why is this guy even here with me, I'm just going to walk through him.' And I'm sure, if you remember the fight, he kncoked me down right away and I was like, 'Okay, you got one, okay.' and I walked up with my hands down. Ive never walked put my hands down like that and I don't know why that was, but that's not going to happen again. That's all I know."