A Question of heart

This past weekend, a friend of mine, Josh, fought his first MMA match. I was not able to attend but I did get to watch the video afterwards. It was amazing. Here’s the link (His last name is Cavan, you have to hit the arrow to get to it, I think it’s the fourth fight): www.nmefighting.com

As I watched, I noticed something that disturbed me…..alot. The video starts with the announcer and then it pans to my boy. Josh looks ripped and in shape, what you would expect of a fighter. They then go to his opponent, who is, er, um, *cough* not quite in good of shape. The fight itself is even worse as Josh’s superior technical skill and conditioning makes short work of his opponent ending in a submission after two rounds of brutal pummeling by Josh. Also, when Josh showed up for the fight, he made weight with no problem but his opponent was 3 to 4 pounds heavy and had to go run in the parking lot. He wasn’t ready.

I than watched the other fights and noticed the same thing. It seemed like very few of the fighters were ready for the fight, and no, I’m not talking about aesthetics as one of the fights offered an extremely lean fighter who obviously had poor conditioning (gassed in the first round) and/or idea of what he was doing. Make no mistake, I’m not detracting from or insulting his opponent or any of the fighters as I respect anybody who gets in that ring. It’s just that I’ve always functioned under the assumption that if you’re going to fight in an MMA match, that you train as hard as you possibly can because the intention is to win.

I asked Josh how long he had to prep for the fight and he said one month. He didn’t know how long his opponent had but I will assume it was at least one month. In that month Josh went from 190 to 170lbs. Twenty pounds. Seriously. Twenty pounds. Anybody that has ever dieted knows how difficult this is. I can speak from experience (right now as a matter of fact) that this is torture. It’s do it yourself water-boarding. This incredible feat speaks volumes about Josh’s dedication to winning (not to mention character) and I believe this is what separates the mediocre from the champions, especially at the amateur level.

I guess my biggest problem with all of this is this approach to the sport itself. This is a sport that involves inflicting injury on each other. If you’re not careful, you can be crippled for life and it seems like these people are treating it like a casual hobby. I don’t understand that.

I also don't fully understand why you wouldn't want to do the best job you possibly can. I am not the most coordinated or athletic guy.....Actually I'm probably the furtherst thing from that. But I am damn sight (sp?) not going to give it my all and become the best fighter that I can be. If I lose (I'm not), it's going to be because the other guy is a better fighter than me, not because it sucks not to eat pizza or because I was too lazy to get out of bed. I just don't get it.