Sean Brady previews FURY Professional Grappling 4 headliner: 'I'm going to submit Ben Saunders, 100 percent'
As the current No. 9-ranked welterweight in the UFC, Sean Brady loves nothing more than stepping into the promotion's famed octagon, but as he awaits his next assignment, the undefeated contender is excited to be returning to the FURY Professional Grappling mat, as well.
"I mean, I'd rather have a fight booked, but this is the second best thing, you know?" Brady said. "I'm waiting to get a fight, and FURY is in my backyard, and that means I'm getting on the card.
"Anytime I can grapple, especially in my city, I'm getting on it, so yeah, it's going to be fun. I'm excited. I've got so many teammates competing, and it brings me back to my old days of fighting for CFFC – fighting and having all my teammates and me compete on the same thing. It's going to be a blast. I'm excited."
Brady, a former CFFC welterweight champion, headlines Saturday's FURY Professional Grappling 4 event, where he faces Eddie Bravo black belt and longtime MMA veteran Ben Saunders in a 10-minute no-gi submission grappling match that streams live on UFC FIGHT PASS from 2300 Arena in Philadelphia. The bout will be contested at 185 pounds and closes out a special two-night run for the organization at the venue, that also includes Friday's CFFC 109, which also streams live on UFC FIGHT PASS.
It's Brady's second appearance for the promotion after earning a decision win over grappling phenom Craig Jones this past December. That match proved to be a bit of a stalemate at times, with both men remaining disciplined to their gameplans.
Jones, a leglock specialist, expressed some frustration that FURY rules bar heel hooks against any athlete on the UFC roster – a provision requested by the promotion in order to minimize the risk of injury to the fighters on loan for the event – but Brady is still proud of the win.
He's also expecting things to be quite dissimilar this time around.
"That was totally different," Brady said. "Obviously, if I had the chance, I would have went for a submission on Craig, but just me beating Craig, no matter how I did it, was a win for me.
Everyone was saying I was going to get submitted in less than a minute, and then just because I didn't get submitted, everyone's like, 'Oh, there's no heel hooks, so he couldn't do what he wanted to do.' I'm like, 'Listen, you have every other submission in the book besides one. You can do kneebars, toeholds, straight ankle locks – everything besides heel hooks.' So yeah, it wasn't the most exciting match, but I literally went in there knowing I just wanted to beat Craig Jones, and that's what I did. This is a completely different match. I'm going to go out there and I'm going to submit Ben Saunders, 100 percent."
While Saunders last competed in the UFC's welterweight division in 2019, just two months after Brady's promotional debut, "Killa B" is certainly a familiar figure to MMA fans. Brady is excited about the matchup.
"I'm looking forward to competing against Ben," Brady said. "He's a good guy. I watched him fight for years, way before I was in the UFC, and he was in the same weight class as me, too. He fought some big names. He had some good success in the UFC, and he's a jiu-jitsu guy, so it's not like I'm grappling a kickboxer or muay Thai guy. He's a 10th Planet jiu-jitsu guy, and it's going to be Renzo Gracie vs. 10th Planet, and it's going to be fun."
Brady says he hopes to become a fixture on future FURY Professional Grappling events, so long as the dates don't interfere with his UFC plans. The 29-year-old Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt loves nothing more than to compete on the mats – other than to compete in the cage, of course.
"If they're in Philly, I'm there 100 percent, and if there's somewhere else, I'll travel to it," Brady said. "I love jiu-jitsu. It's like my favorite thing to do, obviously. Once I'm done fighting, that's when I'm going to compete even more in jiu-jitsu, but while I'm still fighting and active, if I can fit these in a few times a year or even more, I'll be on the card."
You'll likely get an opportunity to see Brady again in the UFC's octagon in the next few months, but until then, UFC FIGHT PASS gives you the chance to watch him compete on Saturday night. If MMA has traditionally been your focus as a fan, Brady believes this might be a good time to give the increasingly popular submission grappling game a chance.
"The way FURY has it set up, the main card is eight-minute matches, but they fly by because they're explosive," Brady said. "Sometimes people think about jiu-jitsu or grappling, and they think of the gi. With the gi, everything's kind of slowed down, and yeah, for guys who know what they're watching, it can be fun to watch, but if you're not really used to watching stuff in the gi, it can be kind of slow. This is all no-gi.
"It's going to be high-paced. It's going to be explosive, so if you like MMA, then you're going to like watching FURY, for sure."
