T.J. Brown: ‘Let's Continue to Educate the Judges’

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After a couple of missteps that marked the beginning of his Ultimate Fighting Championship stint, T.J. Brown finally scored his first promotional victory in May 2021. On that occasion, Brown (15-8, 1-2 UFC) locked horns with Kai Kamaka III. The pair put on a toe-to-toe battle for three frames, and Brown took home the much-coveted victory thanks to a narrow split decision. Still, the fact that one of the cageside judges scored all three rounds in favor of Kamaka never sat right with Brown, who felt it was a huge mistake that nearly cost him a win. According to "Downtown," it's time for officials to step up and improve the quality of their work. While talking with Sherdog, Brown even offered a solution to avoid regrettable decisions from the judges: more vocational training.

"We need to try and get some veteran fighters, some people that may have fought before. Even if not, let's get people having to go through some courses. Not like a weekend course or a day course, let's get maybe a year course so that we know these people are educated. Let's continue to educate them. You say you get certified, or whatever it is, a year ago, [then] every six months to a year you have to continue to get educated and continue to take tests so that these things don't happen. There is no excuse for the sport to be as mainstream as it is and not have quality judging.”

In addition to discussing his mistakes in his first UFC fights, Brown disclosed his plans for the aftermath of his next clash. The 31-year old is scheduled to face Gabriel Benitez on the upcoming UFC on ESPN 32 card.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(01:30) Facing Kamaka in May
(03:17) His thoughts on the judge who scored all three rounds to his opponent's favor
(04:53) His solution to improve the scoring issues
(05:54) Talking Benitez
(07:03) Why did his first fights in the UFC go wrong
(09:15) His plans for the fight’s aftermath
(10:41) Picking Giga Chikadze vs. Calvin Kattar
(11:50) Outro

Tudor Leonte started writing about mixed martial arts in 2013 for Italian media outlets. His journey with Sherdog began in 2018 and now he covers One Championship and countless European shows. You can follow him on Twitter @MrTudorLeonte.