I say the Octagon and not the cage because it all started with the UFC and it will end with the UFC. It doesn’t matter the lies we tell ourselves, because our love affair with the sport lives and dies with the premier organization in the world. Bellator is irrelevant. World Series of Fighting is irrelevant.
Point of fact it is a similar set of polarized emotional plot points that reel us back in every time. People need to judge the sport and it’s players because on some level, it helps us judge ourselves.
We clamor to watch Anderson Silva rise and fall, or maybe the first Mexican Heavyweight Champion of all time extend his legacy or lose it entirely in Cain Velasquez. Don’t forget about the fighters of old making comebacks at the highest echelon of the sport as well at the moment like Mark Hunt and Robbie Lawler .
Where people enjoy watching Ronda Rousey extend her undefeated streak as the most dangerous women in the sport, some tune in to hopefully witness the first time she falls. That particular plot point has been surrounding talks of Cris Cyborg possibly leaving Invicta as the featherweight champ and moving over to the UFC to make a run at Ronda’s belt and all the marbles.
The greatest champions are burdened with the starkest of criticisms in contrast to what they have already accomplished in the cage. Just look at GSP’s career. He was extremely boring for years and yet people tuned in to watch because hell if anyone wants to miss out on the first time he can’t out wrestle his opponent.
The point of combat sports doesn’t revolve around the winner but the loser as well. In fact it’s this tandem, that delicate balance of polarizing moments that reaches out to us and speaks to something inside us in a way more profound than mere fighting is capable of delivering.
When one man drops another and the ref steps in, everything takes a dramatic shift. Where one man is experience the unequivocal relief of self-actualization in one of the most universally recognizable forms of victory, the other is usually down on his knees with an empty look and feel to his posture.
Where one man is being held up by his corner in adulation, the other is seen with his team clustered around him in support, whispering encouraging words and pulling him back to his feet where he belongs as the warrior he set out to be and not the one he has found himself becoming in this moment.
It’s these moments that remind us it’s ok to be human. Remember that when you watch your favorite fighters step in to the cage on some future Saturday night from now. Remember these moments when you are fired from your job or your spouse leaves or cheats. Remember when people fail you or in turn you fail those you love.
All these things will happen, among moments of transcendence as well of course. Wherever we are in life there will be wins and losses to be experienced, but MMA shows us that at no point do the paths we take in life mean we must lose the essence of self.