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Former Marine captain is ready for UFC debut

Before Brian Stann became a Marine, he’d never tried mixed martial arts. His athletic background was in football, and as a bone-crunching linebacker for the Naval Academy, business was good.

That changed when the former Marine captain arrived at The Basic School in 2003 to receive training as a new lieutenant.

Stann, now a professional MMA fighter, found purpose in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, he said. Between TBS and infantry training, he signed on for 10 weeks of schooling at the Corps’ Martial Arts Center for Excellence at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. There, he earned a black belt in MCMAP, became a martial arts instructor trainer and eventually imparted his knowledge to countless new lieutenants from TBS.

Stann left the Corps in May and is now a member of the Individual Ready Reserve. As he prepares for his first Ultimate Fighting Championship match April 18, he still credits MCMAP and the Corps with providing the foundation for his professional fighting career.

“Anyone you find in the Marine Corps who bad-mouths MCMAP, it’s usually because they haven’t had the right instructor,” Stann said. “I’ve never heard of anybody bad-mouthing MCMAP if they’ve been close to Quantico and at the MACE because when the program is done in the pure form and is done as it’s supposed to [be]; it is extremely beneficial to all of its practitioners.”

Stann’s combat record is well-documented: two tours in Iraq, the first of which included a bloody weeklong battle north of Karabilah to seize a bridge used by insurgents. Badly outnumbered and under heavy attack, the platoon held its ground, with then-2nd Lt. Stann in command. Eight Marines were seriously wounded, but none died, and Stann was later awarded a Silver Star for valor.

Less publicized is how Stann’s love of MMA grew while he learned the ropes as junior officer, commanded Marines for the first time and began fighting professionally during his time on active duty.

At the MACE, a number of instructors competed in amateur jujitsu and Muay Thai matches, Stann said. He asked now-retired Master Gunnery Sgt. Ricardo Sanders, then the MACE’s senior noncommissioner officer in charge, what it would take to sign up for a fight.

“He had some friends who were promoters around the area, and I said, ‘Hey, I’d like to sign up for an amateur mixed martial arts fight.’ And he said, ‘Are you sure, sir?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘OK, meet me in the morning at 5:30 and I’ll help you train,” Stann said. “It was kind of like a test. He would train me hard. I [competed in] my first fight, won, and I was addicted from that point on.’”

Soon after, Stann reported to Camp Lejeune, N.C. As a junior infantry officer with 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, he deployed to Iraq. Stann returned from his first deployment in September 2005 and competed in his first World Extreme Cagefighting match nine months later, winning by technical knockout in 16 seconds.

He fought four more times in the WEC as an active-duty Marine, from March 2007 to when he left the Corps on May 15. As an active-duty captain, he won the WEC lightweight championship on March 26, knocking out former champion Doug Marshall. The bout lasted one minute, 35 seconds.

Life after the Corps

Not all Marines were happy to see Stann fighting while on active duty, he said. As he tells it, when his fights started airing on national television, a legal team with II Marine Expeditionary Force shot a message “all the way up to Headquarters Marine Corps saying, ‘We’ve got a guy doing this and we feel it should be stopped.’ ”

Stann said his commanders at 8th Marine Regiment stepped in on his behalf, having him submit a package to Marine officials that outlined some guidelines for his fighting while on active duty. Officials at Marine Corps headquarters did not respond to questions about Stann’s fighting career while on active duty.

“They saw I was a good recruiting tool because they knew how I’d conduct myself,” Stann said. “When I got back from Iraq the second time, I took no leave during block leave so that I could have little spurts of leave I could take when I wanted to go fight. That was the deal. It was all my own time, and that’s the way it should be.”

Nevertheless, he chose to leave the Corps when his contract expired, focusing on his fighting career and his family, which now includes a 15-month-old daughter, Alexandra.

“It was really just my family,” Stann said. “... It became where being a father was my first priority instead of being a Marine officer, so I made that tough decision.”

To provide for his family, Stann works a day job as the executive director of Hire Heroes USA, a nonprofit organization that helps find jobs for veterans, especially those who are disabled. He has earned about $8,000 to $10,000 for most of his professional fights, with a high of $18,000 when he won the WEC championship, according to several MMA Web sites.

Fighting to retain his status as a WEC champion, Stann lost for the first time as a civilian in August, getting beat in a rematch with Steve Cantwell. It was a learning experience for Stann, whose 6-0 record and raw punching power were not enough to beat Cantwell’s flurry of kicks and knee strikes.

The loss hasn’t changed the high regard the Corps holds for Stann, however.

Lt. Col. Mike Zeliff, assistant chief of staff for advertising with Marine Corps Recruiting Command, said Stann’s story is “one of a series of great Marine stories” that can be told to show the merits of joining the service.

“He has been an ideal spokesperson and role model,” Zeliff said.

On April 18, at UFC 97 in Montreal, Stann will take on Kryzynsztof Soszynski, another light-heavyweight fighter who put together a 16-8-1 record in the WEC before swapping to the UFC. Both fighters made the swap from the WEC in part because the league dropped its light heavyweight and middleweight divisions.

Stann said he thinks the loss to Cantwell “is the best thing that could have happened to me,” and that his move to the civilian world and a home in the Atlanta area may have distracted him before the fight.

“I had to relocate, I had to find all new training partners, coaches, and my life was in a huge transition,” he said. “Times like those are probably not the best to have world championship fights, so that you can truly focus on it.”