```On December 8, 2004, three-and-a-half years prior to his UFC debut, Brown was taking in a show by Damageplan, the side project of Pantera guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott and drummer Vinnie Paul, at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio. Head banging near the front of the crowd, the unflinching Brown was caught off guard, when former Marine Nathan Gale opened fire, killing four people inside the venue, including Abbott, one of metal’s most revered six stringers.
“I saw pretty much the whole thing from beginning to end … I was right there, probably 20 feet away when it happened,” recalls Brown. “At first that I thought they stabbed “Dimebag,” so I seen some people running and I seen others just trying to stop in their tracks … I just started hearing the gun shots and realized, wow, something crazy’s happening and I started to run. I actually turned around and faced him and said to myself I’m not gonna get shot in my back running away from this guy. I went behind a concrete pole and watched them fire shots off in the crowd. A guy two or three feet from me got shot in the arm … I just seen the blood go, he didn’t die though … I came back in and seen “Dimebag” laying there with his guitar.”```
