UFC heavyweight Travis Browne’s downward spiral continued on Saturday at UFC 213 with his fourth loss in a row, putting him at 2-6 since 2014. Personally, things seem pretty all right … he recently got engaged to Ronda Rousey during a vacation in Hawaii. But professionally, he continues to lose fights he should be able to win. Fights he is winning, right up until something goes wrong for him and his opponent’s hand gets raised in the end.
And there's the tap! @oleynikufc doing what @oleynikufc does at #UFC213! pic.twitter.com/F3t4lZd3ZD
— UFC Europe (@UFCEurope) July 9, 2017
That’s exactly how things unfolded again at UFC 213 against Russian submission specialist Oleksiy Oliynyk. Oliynyk is experiencing a career resurgence since returning to the UFC two years ago, but still hasn’t cracked the heavyweight top 10 rankings. It should have been a relatively easy win for Browne, who has wins over legends like Alistair Overeem and Josh Barnett on his resume. Instead, Browne looked exhausted halfway through the second round and followed Oliynyk to the canvas where ‘The Boa Constrictor’ lived up to his name and finished Brown with a smothering neck crank.
“It’s crazy,” UFC president Dana White said after the event. “Travis Browne was one of those guys right before, I would say the Bigfoot (Silva) fight, even the Bigfoot fight he got injured, he blew his hamstring or something weird happened to him that fight – the guy looked like he would be a world champion. This is one of those sports, you never know. One minute you’re absolutely unbeatable and unstoppable, then the next minute you can’t win a fight.”
“I think that Travis should retire,” he concluded.
It’s never good when the guy who holds your contract calls on you to retire, but this isn’t exactly the best sport (or division) to hang around in once you’re past your best before date. Whether White will follow up with his advice by releasing Browne remains to be seen, but it sounds like there’s good chance we’ve seen the last of him in the UFC.
