Browne ‘thankful’ for short-notice rematch with Werdum at UFC 203

Just more than a month had passed since Travis Browne found himself on the wrong end of perhaps the most devastating loss of his career.

Yet, he was looking to get back in the cage.

And then came an opportunity Browne had pined to receive for more than two years: a rematch with Fabricio Werdum.

So, when the Glendale Fighting Club’s Browne was offered a rematch with Werdum, the former Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight champion, the lack of notice mattered not.

“We found out about it on a Thursday afternoon and, about 10 minutes later, we accepted it,” Browne said.

And now, with an abbreviated camp behind him and a chance to avenge a loss along with righting his career momentum ahead of him, Browne will toe the line with Werdum on Saturday night at Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena as part of the UFC 203 pay-per-view card, which begins at 7 p.m. PST.

“It’s funny, because it was a short camp and all that, and you can look at it that there are a lot of things going against me, but I’m super confident,” said Browne, who replaced an injured Ben Rothwell against Werdum. “When I go into a fight and I’m confident and ready, that’s when I’m dangerous.”

Ranked sixth in the UFC heavyweight rankings, Browne (18-4-2, 9-4-1 in UFC) is looking to rebound from a first-round loss to No. 2 Cain Velasquez in July via technical knockout when the cage door locks against No. 1 Werdum (20-6-1, 8-3 in UFC).

“I’m ready to go,” Browne said. “This is a fight I’ve been waiting two and a half years for.”

Browne and Werdum’s clash will serve as the co-main event of a card headlined by the heavyweight championship contest between titlist Stipe Miocic (15-2), a Cleveland native, and challenger Alistair Overeem (41-14), ranked No. 3. Miocic knocked out Werdum to win the title in May, while Overeem has won four straight and five of six since his loss in August of 2013 to Browne. Also on the main card and likely drawing the most interest from the casual fan will be the mixed martial arts debut of CM Punk, a former multiple-time World Wrestling Entertainment champion, who will face Mickey Gall (2-0).

Browne, on the other hand, will have a fifth fight on his resume against an opponent that has been UFC champion (a number that could go to six if Overeem wins the belt).

As big fights go, this one has Browne motivated more than others and he believes that any negative momentum from the Velasquez loss, or the lack of notice for the bout, is negated by motivation.

“I’m ready for it to be fight night; I’m not ready for it to be Sunday, for it to be over. I’m enjoying this week leading up to it and I’m really looking forward to this fight,” Browne said. “That’s something that’s been missing for me on a few occasions, but I’m ready and I’m excited.”

Werdum’s loss to Miocic brought an end to a six-fight winning streak that was historic in retrospect. Many MMA pundits began talk as to whether Werdum should be considered the greatest heavyweight fighter of all-time considering he had defeated Velasquez in June of 2015 via guillotine choke and submitted former PRIDE and UFC interim champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira via submission during that span and had previously been the first to legitimately defeat all-time great Fedor Emelianenko, also via submission.

Part of that aforementioned six-fight winning streak for Werdum was a five-round unanimous decision win over Browne in the main event of UFC on FOX 11 from Orlando in April of 2014.

“I just need to go out there and be myself,” Browne said. “In the last fight, I went out there trying to finish the fight in the first round and I kind of gassed myself out. I got it back in the later rounds, but I’d already taken too much damage by that point.”

The bout sent Werdum to a title shot (he would defeat Mark Hunt for an interim title before waiting for an injured Velasquez and then wresting the championship from him). And the bout also sent Browne north to Glendale.

The Werdum loss was the last for Browne training with Greg Jackson and Mike Winklejohn as part of Jackson-Wink MMA in New Mexico, one of the highest-regarded camps in the sport.

Under the tutelage of Edmond Tarverdyan, Browne had alternated wins and losses to the tune of a 2-2 mark, but talk of a Werdum rematch has swirled in the Glendale camp since Browne’s first days there.

And on Saturday, he will have his first professional rematch and there’s most assuredly a different mood.

“It just adds fuel to the fire,” Browne said. “It’s a new feeling that I’ve never had before. I’m grateful for it.”

The first bout between the two saw Browne break his left hand, reportedly in the first round. He also suffered broken ribs, a broken nose and dislocated bones in his foot. Perhaps some bad blood also spilled over as the two engaged in a tense staredown following Thursday’s prefight press conference.

In his native Portuguese, Werdum reportedly could be heard telling Browne: “I will break your face, bastard. …You know I will break you. You know that.”

While Velasquez ended Browne’s night inside a round, he’s come back far healthier than he did after his first bout with Werdum. And, for one, Velasquez believes it could be a different Browne than the one who fought him and Werdum previously.

“I think so, a little bit,” Velasquez told The MMA Hour’s Ariel Helwani on Monday when asked if he was surprised about how quickly Browne has returned. “But it just shows what type of guy he is. He feels like he can come back and fight a better fight against Werdum and I feel like he can, too.

“With him and Werdum in the last fight, first round, I would say Browne won that round and just with the shape-issue, I guess, Werdum was always in good shape, so he ended up winning that fight. With this next one, it could be different. It could be different.”

Browne’s definitely feeling different ahead of Saturday, when he’ll get his chance at carving out a different outcome more than two years in the making.

“It’s great,” Browne said. “Not everybody gets a chance to fight somebody that they lost to in the past. I’m thankful for that.”

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Grant Gordon, grant.gordon@latimes.com

Twitter: @TCNGrantGordon