Cody Brundage (10-5 MMA, 4-4 UFC) said he feels good after his slam KO victory over Zach Reese at UFC Austin last Saturday.
The Factory X product walked away with a quick win and $50K Performance of the Night bonus.
“After you win, you get 1,000 messages telling you how awesome you are, and when you lose, you’ve got 1,000 telling you how shitty you are,” Brundage told MMASucka. “You’ve just got to learn to realize who’s really there and who’s real. Fighting’s a good thing for that. I felt good. You can’t really do it better than a minute knockout with a performance bonus.”
Brundage was backstage watching Drakkar Klose‘s fight with Joe Solecki right before his own. Klose slammed Solecki for a KO just 1:41 into their contest.
“It was funny, after the fight, I was joking, ‘Damn, he didn’t even hit him. He didn’t need to follow up after he spiked him.’ One of my coaches was like, ‘Man, fuck that, you’ve got to get your money.’ I ended up having to do the same thing, so it was kind of funny.”
Brundage said Reese had strong hips and knew his foe had a good triangle-to-armbar series. Reese pulled it off over Eli Aronov in the Contender Series.
When Reese put his hips up against Brundage, Brundage said he immediately went to lift.
“My anticipation was that he was going to let go of the submission,” he said. “When he held on, I didn’t really have any option other than to spike him. I think that’s part of the reason they tell you don’t slam, because it pretty much eliminates all your other defense. I was fortunate that as soon as he locked it on, he wasn’t on angle and I stood up immediately and hit the slam.”
Brundage said Reese was “pretty much out” after the slam. Four follow-up shots after, and the referee pulled Brundage away at the 1:49 mark of the first round. Brundage thinks he might have dislocated Reese’s shoulder as well after spiking him on it.
While Brundage saw what Klose did to Solecki, it wasn’t in his mind during his own slam over Reese, as he was just reacting to what Reese did.
“But pretty much immediately after I did it, I was like, ‘Wow, it’s pretty wild that he just did that and then I did that,'” he said. “The crowd was definitely into it, which was cool. That’s one of the cool things about fighting in front of the crowd: their reaction. They went pretty nuts. I think part of it was it was because it was a cool finish, but seeing it back-to-back had them going pretty nuts.”
Reese entered the middleweight bout at 6-0 as a professional. Brundage said taking Reese’s undefeated record wasn’t extra satisfying from a personal standpoint, but that it did feel good to beat someone he believes is talented, had run through every other opponent and has skill.
“People were kind of counting me out a little bit,” Brundage said. “It was in his hometown. He’s undefeated. He’s beat everyone in the first round. So it does feel good to beat somebody of merit that I think maybe people weren’t expecting me to beat. That definitely feels good.”
Brundage said he spoke with Reese a little bit before and after the fight.
“He’s a really good dude. We’d probably be buddies if we weren’t getting into a fistfight. I just told him I’ve been there. I’ve been the guy who was undefeated on the regional scene and ran through everybody. And then you take your first loss, and your first thought is, ‘Do I belong here?’ I told him it takes a minute for you to find your stride. I think he’ll have success. I think he’s really big for the weight class. He put me in a triangle pretty quick. I don’t many people have the ability to do that. He has the skills. He’s a good dude, we have the same management. I don’t really take a ton of joy from taking his ‘0’ but if it was me or him, obviously, I’m happy it was me.”
The victory marked Brundage’s second in a row. His most recent fight was a disqualification win after Jacob Malkoun illegally elbowed Brundage in the back of his head. Brundage said there are a lot of good fights out there for him but wouldn’t mind running the Malkoun fight back.
“Obviously, that didn’t go the way either of us wanted.”
He also named Dustin Stoltzfus, who submitted Punahele Soriano with a rear naked choke on the same card he fought Reese on.
“I watched his fight and I thought he had a great performance, but I think we’re at kind of the same point in our careers and we fought on the same night, so timing-wise, that kind of lines up well,” Brundage said. “I don’t know. There are a lot of people out there. I feel good. I have some good confidence. It depends on when they want to turn me around. I don’t know what plans are with certain people, so that’s kind of my hesitation. I’m not one of these people who wants to call someone out if I don’t think the fight can happen. I find that to be a little bit corny. I think those two are good options and we’ll see where [the UFC] wants to go from here.”
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