Every fight card has one type of fight that returns over and over again.
One fighter gets beaten to a pulp but somehow manages to survive the whole fight.
The whole crowd goes wild, and the losing fighter goes viral on social media #warriorspirit #damagedbutnotbroken.
There’s only one thing on these fans minds—well, for 5 minutes at least—and they all say that this fighter has tons of heart. They make the fighter go viral, and that’s the end of it. Until it happens again, of course.
Recently, I saw such a fight again in a big organization. Honestly, it was hard to watch, and I didn’t understand why the fight didn’t get stopped or why the corner didn’t throw in the towel.
It was horrendous, to say the least. But the comment section was going wild. The comment section was cheering for the fighter to survive or just get beaten up enough to be able to stand there for the obvious decision loss.
What I saw was a fighter with horrendous defense, horrible decision-making on the back foot, no power to get respect from the opponent, and horrible ring generalship.
I mean, imagine putting yourself in the corner of the ring, being able to escape miraculously, and then returning to another available corner only to get beat up again.
At that point, you’re just a punching bag. You lack all the fundamentals to be in the ring, and the casuals only see that you’ve shown heart.
Simply because they don’t know any better. Because in reality, the fighter was holding on for dear life.
The fighter and the coach should have known better, but apparently, they didn’t. The fighter will probably make a social media post and get tons of praise for showing heart from people who have never stepped foot in a ring.
I also doubt they ever will. And here is the issue that is very prevalent in our society: People will take advice or praise from people with zero skin in the game.
They keep fighting to entertain the fans, only to retire young because they suffered too much damage during their relatively short career.
By going through a training camp and making the walk, you’ve already proven you’re tough. And maybe you’ll have fights where you injure yourself and need to show heart.
I definitely had fights where I had to do that. And there is nothing wrong with fighting with heart, but why take unnecessary damage? Why are you proud of taking damage because you lack the proper defensive fundamentals?
Why?
It just doesn’t make sense to me.
Alex
