At some point in everyone’s life they come across someone or something they are in awe of. Even those with the biggest of egos run into a situation where, although they won’t show you publicly, on a private level, they marvel at it. It’s what makes gifts and abilities unique. They vary from person to person but every person has something they do well and do it better than most. The individuals who put those gifts to use on a big enough stage get to enjoy the benefits of them the most. It’s the athletes, the actors, the entertainers, the musicians and so forth who see the most fortune and fame from their gifts.
In the fight game, those who take their gifts, expand them, build a buzz, market themselves and reach the pinnacle of their sport, get that same “movie star” response and in some cases, even go mainstream and parlay that into a career outside the ropes and cage.
The difference for professional fighters is there comes a time in this high risk – high reward place of work where someone younger, someone hungrier, and maybe even someone better stands in front of you.
And by You I don’t mean, a cast, a team, or a band… I mean You and only You. I’ve heard it so many times from fighters – “Once you’re in there, you’re alone”
To me that’s the beauty. And behind every ounce of beauty is a pound of tragedy.
Through the years in my boxing life, there have been a lot of great ones. But there are those precious few that come along and carry that aura. It’s difficult to explain to those that don’t see it. But take your favorite musician or entertainer. The one whose amazing gift and talent blows you away, and mix in a mystery and presence that can control a room, an arena, and a stadium. Now sprinkle on an innate passion for violence and the understanding that inflicting physical pain is their path to success, and that’s the type of species I’m referring too.
Mike Tyson is at the top of the list for me as far as having that aura about him. With his black trunks, no robe, blank stare, calm demeanor and assault riffle like aggression the moment the bell rang, he won majority of his fights before he even got in the ring. There’s an old adage that says – “the only thing worse than getting your ass kicked, is waiting for it to happen.” With Tyson, it couldn’t be more true.
But then when Tyson himself was finally beat and knocked out, the aura diminished and the psychological advantage he had taken with him into every battle slowly became less threatening, and the fear faded for most of his opponents after.
This past weekend in the MMA world, a similar thing happened.
Fedor Emelianenko had that aura about him. A polite and humble man, the Russian heavyweight has a highlight reel full of brutal knockouts and submissions, to go along with the emotionless entrance and calm demeanor that Tyson had. When he lost Saturday, you saw a sense of knowing that the mental advantage he had become so used to, would probably never be captured again. It’s part of the business.
As fans and admirers of these special few, we feel an incredibly similar heartache. When Tyson lost, even as a kid I noticed his fans felt a disappointment different than that of a team loss. When your favorite football team loses, identifying and spreading out the heartache to a team of 50 plus players, sort of turns the break to a bruise. When you identify with an individual, it’s a singular pain.
The reaction to Fedor’s loss over the weekend from his fans was much like mine when a fighter I admire loses. What’s odd is that the most hurt physically and emotionally by the loss are the fighters themselves. To train tirelessly and invest relentlessly, just to come up short, is an exhausting defeat on so many levels. Yet the fans also wear the pain on their face as if they were the ones who stood toe-to-toe in that violent setting and lost.
The truth is, these fighters that we watch are the part of you that only exists in your mind. We’d all love to believe in some far away place that we could do the things we admire most but it’s just not the case. It’s why we fail to appreciate our own gifts and the things that make us great. Every single day, at every single moment, we do something that most people can’t. Because it’s so natural and routine, we don’t even notice it majority of the time.
When you latch onto a belief, your loyalty leads you to take emotional ownership of the end result. No matter how big and invincible a house may seem, the wind of a storm strong enough can always tear it down. And although you can physically rebuild the frame to a near identical version of the first, it’s never quite the same when the aura on the inside dies with the last gust.”
