Mike Swick Determined to Bounce Back from Knockout Loss

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Mike Swick had never been knocked out in the UFC, but after seven and a half years of competition in the Octagon, it finally happened Dec. 8 at UFC on Fox 5.

Matt Brown caught him with a left hook-straight right combination to finish their fight 2:31 into the second round.

“If you look at the replay, he landed the shot directly on my jaw, which just completely looks like it broke my jaw or something and I had absolutely no pain in my jaw the next day,” Swick told the Sherdog Radio Network’s “It’s Time” show with Bruce Buffer. “I always have pain in my jaw. It always hurts to bite down after a fight. That’s just the way it is because you get hit in the jaw, and where the bone locks into your head, it always gets pulled and stretched, but for some reason, my jaw was completely fine. It’s amazing how clean that shot was.”

Swick had a tough time in the first round as well, as Brown took him down and threatened with both brabo and triangle chokes. On the feet, Brown was also the aggressor.

“He did pretty much what I expected him to do, honestly, and very well,” Swick said. “He pushed forward and he came hard. He would eat the shots. He would take the shots and just keep coming forward. It was good pressure. That was definitely something he did really well, was keep that pressure and stay moving forward. Whether he was landing or not, he was throwing it -- the elbows and the knees and the punches. If you weren’t getting hit with something, you were almost getting hit with something, which I think is great. That’s kind of my style. I love to do that as well.”

The fight was just the second for Swick since February 2010. He had been forced to the sidelines for a variety of reasons, including a knee injury. Although the knee wasn’t an issue against Brown, Swick plans on getting back to rehab soon.

“I’m going to go back to get it better for the future,” he said. “This is my third operation on this knee in the last 14 months or whatever, but there was no issue with the knee. It was one of those nights where I didn’t perform how I wanted and it sucks because it was really important for me to put on a great performance. Even though I won a really good fight in August, there were parts of that fight I didn’t like. I wanted to perform better. I trained really hard and put a lot of hard work into these last 10 weeks to put on the performance I wanted to, and it didn’t happen.”

Now Swick is hoping to get his knee stronger and jump back in the cage in about four months or so.

“You’ve got to pick yourself back up,” he said. “I’ve been through so much, so much before this that was harder and tougher. I’ve just got to get myself back up.” Listen to the full interview (beginning at 19:57).