Patrick Brady isn’t the typical fighter you might see making his way towards a million dollar payday. Ahead of the begining of the PFL’s heavyweight regular season, Brady has been a professional for just 16 total months. In that time, he’s fought just five professional fights – a fraction of what those on the roster have.
Although Brady himself sees it as wild, he’s here to prove that you don’t need a massive record or even a lot of notice (he takes this on just three weeks) to make a big splash.
“It’s pretty cool. It’s no secret that I have the least amount of experience in the tournament. There’s 10 guys and I’m the only one with under ten fights,” Brady said. “It’s pretty wild, but I’m excited for the opportunity to prove that it’s just a number.”
His confidence in himself comes from his preparation. He splits his time between a couple of Philadelphia area gyms where he trains alongside of the Daukaus brothers, as well as Sean Brady, Andre Petroski, and Joe Pyfer.
His time with these fighters isn’t as short as his record might suggest though. It was the better part of a decade ago when he decided to change his life around and found MMA as a result.
“I’ve been out here grinding for a long time, brother. I got sober in 2016 – I’m active in recovery and part of Alcoholic’s Anonymous. I made some lifestyle changes in 2016 and I made my amateur MMA debut in 2018,” he shared. “I got my mind right and I wanted the body to follow.”
But when he made those changes, he didn’t really expect them to lead to a long MMA career – nevermind one that would put him in a PFL season with the chance at a million dollars.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect anything to come of this. I kind of just wanted to get in shape and wanted to learn something new,” Brady admitted. “I did a boxing match and there was somebody there who did MMA – he told me that he was tougher than me because he did MMA. I wanted to find out what he was talking about.”
Just two months after that, Brady was in the cage for his very first amateur fight and fell in love doing it. So while he never imagined that just trying to get his body right would send him down this path, here he is with a chance to make a big splash in one of the biggest organizations in the world.
His first fight in the regular season will take place this Friday as part of the ESPN+ prelims. He’ll face Michał Andryszak – a man with 35 professional fights to his name.
You can hear the entire audio of this interview at 34:28.
