Las Vegas, NV — Mixed martial arts fighters fight inside and outside of the cage in this thing called life.
Cody Brundage (7-2) picked up his first UFC win at UFC Vegas 50 on Saturday night. He weathered a wild first round to come back and submit Dalcha Lungiambula with a guillotine choke.
During his backstage post-fight interview with the media, including Cageside Press, he already had a name locked and loaded for a potential next fight: Andre Petroski. Since losing on The Ultimate Fighter, Petroski is 2-0, and it makes sense for the middleweight fighting out of Colorado.
Brundage was wearing a black sleeve during weigh-ins, and during his post-fight interview, he revealed its meaning.
“So it’s my daughter’s name Kingsley in purple, which is epilepsy awareness. I’ve been kind of vocal about it. Nobody’s really asked me too much; the UFC did a story, but she has a very rare genetic condition,” Brundage told Cagesdie Press. “I actually found out the week of my first UFC fight. So that was a really hectic week. It’s called ALG 13, there’s only like 40 documented cases of it, and basically, kids that have it are predisposed to epilepsy seizures, like major delays developmentally. The UFC made this for me to kind of just honor that and honor her, and, you know, she gives me a lot of motivation for what I’m fighting for. And yeah, I thought it was really cool. They did that and allowed me to promote that on their platform.”
Brundage faced Nick Maximov on short notice in his UFC debut, and that was when he found out about his young daughter’s condition. He explained the stress that came with finding out about it while cutting weight for his debut.
“Oh yeah, it was crazy. [I found out] the day of my weight cut, so emotions are already kind of high. I was zoomed into a call with our neurologist and they gave us this news that your life and your daughter’s life is going to be completely altered moving forward. And that’s tough to deal with,” Brundage said. “I remember right before I walked out, you know, just for a split second. I was like, dang, I hope this fight goes 15 minutes because that’s 15 minutes I don’t have to think about real life. And that’s not necessarily the best thought you want to have when you walk out to a fight, but we’re doing better now. And like I said, it’s a day-by-day thing…So we’re hopeful, and we’re just working on it.
Watch the rest of Cody Brundage’s UFC Vegas 50 post-fight interview above.
