Bryan Battle admits he wouldn't have fought in Randy Brown's situation at UFC 310 'just off principle'

Bryan Battle wouldn't have blamed Randy Brown for declining their UFC 310 fight on weigh-in day.

The 30-year-old welterweight made a relatively short turnaround this past Saturday after scoring a viral win over Kevin Jousset at UFC Paris in September. Unfortunately for Battle, his smooth trip to France didn't carry over to UFC 310. A former amateur heavyweight to start his MMA career in 2017, Battle badly missed weight for the second time in his UFC run, surpassing his previous three-pound weight miss with a four-pound miss against Brown, resulting in the bout becoming a 175-pound catchweight.

Had the roles been reversed, there wouldn't have been a fight at all.

"If you don't take the fight, I understand," Battle admitted on Uncrowned's "The Ariel Helwani Show." "I wouldn't take the fight, personally. That's why I thought I messed up. Me personally, I know that sounds crazy, like if I make weight and the other person misses, I'm not taking the fight. I would be like, 'Yo, we can rebook it, we can do it again some other time, but I'm not fighting today.' Just off principle. But the moment you accept the fight and you take a fat chunk out of my purse, I don't want to hear it anymore."

Brown has never missed weight in his 25-fight career, although he's no stranger to opponents who have. The veteran welterweight overcame a four-pound heavier Jared Gooden via unanimous decision back in an October 2021 affair, however that result wasn't able to be replicated at UFC 310.

The overweight Battle won a controversial split decision over Brown, but the fans inside the T-Mobile Arena were glad to make their voices heard. Battle received a healthy serving of boos when the decision was read; per MMA Decisions, the majority of fan votes scored the fight in favor of Brown, with a 29-28 Brown scorecard still standing as the most popular outcome.

Battle felt that he deserved the nod, but he wasn't happy with the performance and what preceded it.

"What didn't go wrong?" Battle said. "There were injuries throughout the fight camp. I popped my ribs. That's one of the funny things is we spent so much time up against the cage — I didn't do any wrestling at all this fight camp. I was really thinking that if we did do some clinch stuff, I would be pushing into him, but I wasn't anticipating him pushing into me and whatnot. But I got this cut [on my face] during the camp. I got this [second] cut [on the other side of my face] like a week before the fight. So there's just a bunch of things happening, but period, there's no excuse.

"It was a fast turnaround, I learned some things, I took some things for granted, and now it's like, 'OK, well Bryan, are you going to be one of the best in the world or are you going to be competing at the upper echelon? You need to [do that] in a day-to-day way.' Even if I don't have a full several months to really tune myself up for the fight, I need to be walking around ready to make weight at any time."

Battle's first weight miss against Gabriel Green in May 2023 led to a much cleaner performance than UFC 310. Battle defeated Green with a 14-second knockout and strangely earned a Performance of the Night bonus — something overweight fighters are typically ineligible for.

As soon as UFC 310 weigh-in day came around, Battle knew he was doomed.

"It was a sh*tty weight cut, I won't lie to you," Battle said. "It was the morning of the weigh-in. I messaged my agent the morning of the weigh-ins. That was when I stopped sweating.

"Normally, as long as I can get a sweat going, like I'll just sit in the sauna or the hot tub and just let the sweat go until we get there. But if I sit in a sauna or a hot bath or something for 45 minutes to an hour and I'm not getting any sweat, knowing how I sweat, then that's when I start to have concerns. When I was in the hot bath for 45 minutes, I thought I messed up everything. I didn't think the fight was going to happen. I was like, 'I really blew this one.' When I went to the [UFC] APEX to do the weigh-in, I was like, 'I messed this up. I just gotta eat. Take my responsibility for it and just take it on the chin and keep on going.'

"Then I talked to him and his coach and I was like, 'I think they're thinking about taking the fight. Yo, that's crazy.'"

Battle's win may have kept his five-fight unbeaten streak intact, but his bank account took the night's biggest knockout. Instead of a typical 20% purse deduction fighters receive for a weight miss, "The Ultimate Fighter 29" winner indicated his penalty was higher.

Brown said on Tuesday's episode of "The Ariel Helwani Show" that the deduction was 30% of Battle's purse.

"That is a severe consequence," Battle said. "More power to him. He deserved it and I didn't deserve that part of my purse.

"With that being said, him taking the fight and taking that chunk out of my purse, no one can say nothing to me about how the weight affected the fight. I don't want to hear it. He knew about it, he's been training forever. He took my money. I don't want to hear nothing about how the weight affected the fight because, in my opinion, it didn't affect the fight."