Sonny Brown

Interviews & Media Articles

Sonny Brown: Aussie MMA’s hidden hero by Sam Brown
Sonny Brown: Chasing a Fight to Remember at Brace 20 by Neil Rooke
ADCC Post Match Interviews For FloGrappling
BJJ Mental Models Podcast: Kesa-Gatame Position Series
Stephan Kesting Podcast: Beating BJJ Instructional Overwhelm

Biography

I started training martial arts seriously in 2007, beginning with Shoot Fighting, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and wrestling all at the same time at Langes MMA with BJJ world champion, Shooto veteran & Australian MMA pioneer, Coach Anthony Lange. At the same time, I was working in the I.T. field full time as a network administrator. I had my first amateur MMA bout for Shooto Australia and then fell in love with the competition side and started to compete regularly in professional Mixed Martial Arts bouts and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competitions.

Ultimately, I was able to be victorious in 3 MMA title bouts becoming a 3 time Australian Mixed Martial Arts Champion in the lightweight division beating standouts Dan Hooker and Damien Brown. I was also lucky to be able to secure one MMA victory via Gogoplata choke and at this stage am still the only person in Australia to do so. I also found success in No-Gi Grappling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competitions winning roughly 18 gold, 10 silver and 7 bronze medals in state and national competitions. Finally, I stopped competing in Mixed Martial Arts and began to attend the University of Sydney and changed careers into teaching by earning a Bachelor of Education in Health & Physical Education.

During that time of transformation, I began to use my I.T. skills to produce technical video analysis & breakdowns of Mixed Martial Arts bouts to upload onto youtube for education purposes. I also began to shift my focus more towards coaching rather than competing with the addition of the new coaching knowledge I was gaining from my studies. I also took the opportunity to experiment with Tae Kwon Do training with the university and even competed in the art.

I was awarded my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt in 2017 by my coach, 4th Degree Black Belt Anthony Lange and have continued to train, teach and still compete in grappling competitions. I also had a renewed interest in American Folkstyle wrestling. I gained a qualification of Level 1 Folkstyle Wrestling Coach with The Wrestling Foundation under the guidance of my wrestling coach Gary Jones. I was also fortunate enough to referee in the first-ever folkstyle wrestling tournament held in Australia by The Wrestling Foundation which was a fantastic event.

The breakdowns and technical analysis videos I was producing began to be favourably received by viewers, and I was receiving positive feedback from members of the martial arts community and even those I had featured in my videos. These included Randy Couture, Matt Lindland, Karo Parisyan, Phil Davis and the coach of the Granby High wrestling school to name a few. Then in 2019, I started “The Sonny Brown Breakdown” podcast to have discussions on the training, teaching, health and education of mixed martial arts. I now look forward to continuing to grow in all these endeavours into the future.

Competition Footage