One of the least talked about aspects of sports is the amount of pain the average athlete endures. I do not just mean sports like fighting or football where the impacts and the damage they cause are easy to observe. Even a sport like tennis or running ultimately comes down to how far an individual can push themselves.
If you doubt that a sport like tennis is not about pain then I recommend you read Andre Agassi’s excellent biography Open. It is a great look into the world of a world-class athlete. One who has paid the price;
“I count to three, then start the long, difficult process of standing. With a cough, a groan, I roll onto my side, then curl into the fetal position, then flip over onto my stomach. Now I wait, and wait, for the blood to start pumping… When the nerves protest their cramped quarters, when they send out distress signals, a pain runs up and down my leg that makes me suck in my breath and speak in tongues.”
Agassi understood early that one of the costs of greatness in tennis would be pain. Another one of my favorite athletes is Steve Prefontaine who also understood this, and a great quote from the movie Without Limits illustrates the concept perfectly, “I can endure more pain than anyone you’ve ever met. That’s why I can beat anyone I’ve ever met.”
With both tennis and running it is difficult to see the pain that they are suffering. The great ones are best at disguising it like predatory cats in the wild, an athlete does not want to show any weakness for fear that it will be exploited. Precisely, because any great competition is a battle between two predators.
In combat sports it is easiest to see and understand that and it is harder to hide the damage. Cuts, bruises, swollen faces and broken bones are all visible to the eye.
“I can get you a toe”
For many fighters this is the easiest pain to endure, in fact, it is often not felt until later. During the fight adrenaline kicks-in and will often mask the pain. One of the best examples of this recently was Jon Jones and his toe against Chael Sonnen at UFC 159.
In that fight Jones tore his big toe partially off, but he was not affected by it during the fight. In fact, Jones did not even realize that he hurt it until his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan. When Rogan brought it to his attention Jones almost collapsed and seemed to be getting visibly ill from the sight of his own toe.
Then there are the fighters who are aware of their injuries, they feel the pain and still choose to keep fighting. In keeping with the toe theme, there was Uriah Hall at UFC 175. His big toe was badly mangled in the first round of his fight with Thiago Santos but he fought on gutting out a tough win.
It was the type of injury that would have stopped many fighters but Hall found a way to dig deep, put it aside and fight on. It is the type of performance that earns a fighter instant respect from fans and fighters both.
It is the type of moment most people cannot understand, to them an injury like that would leave them writhing in pain on the floor. It is what a normal person would do but fighters are different. Especially, the ones at the top, the ones we see on TV.
The fighter endures pain that others will not, that others cannot. They fight past it because there is something inside of them that will not allow them to quit, something driving them to their limits. When we witness a performance like that it moves us, it inspires us and it thrills us.
Yes, we cannot help but to be attracted to the violence that allows a fighter to display his toughness. Seeing Diego Sanchez get blasted by Gilbert Melendez and keep coming forward is mesmerizing, it is exhilarating. A fight like theirs, or Rory MacDonald’s and Robbie Lawler’s at UFC 189 leaves us buzzing inside.
In the Lawler and MacDonald classic we saw MacDonald taken to his limit. For many fighters that fight would have broken them. Instead he goes on the MMA Hour and calls Lawler, “the funnest guy to fight in the world.”
That is not the typical reaction to something that left him looking like this:
But, fighters are a little different from the rest of us. They seek out that which most of us try to avoid everyday on our lives. Most people will avoid a fight, and most people avoid pain but they are elements of a fighter’s daily life.
Pain is a daily part of a fighter’s life
There is pain in training. There is pain in weight-cuts. There is pain losing. There is the pain of isolating yourself from your family and friends. A fighter has to at least accept pain and if they can make friends with it, then greatness awaits them. Immortality awaits them.
Immortality and greatness are two of the ultimate seducers. They use pain as part of their reward system to draw you in deeper. The more you suffer the more you gain. The more you suffer the more you endear yourself to fight fans. The more you suffer the greater your legend grows.
A fight like Lawler’s and MacDonald’s will change them but it also changes us. It alters our perception of them. Going into this fight MacDonald had developed a reputation for being a boring fighter. Now, suddenly he is everyone’s favorite fighter to watch.
For all of the pain the fighters endure during training, cutting weight and in fights there is one pain many avoid. Fighters like Lawler and MacDonald do not have to deal with the pain of regrets, the pain of not giving their best, the pain of not trying. MacDonald fought until he could no longer stand and Lawler was relentless himself continuing to come forward even after he took damage.
The dirty little secret of greatness is that pain is required and only those willing to pay that price can attain it. Every fighter who steps into a ring, a cage or onto a mat knows pain. It is one of the inevitabilities of the sport, if you fight you will suffer pain of many different forms.
The ones who want immortality and greatness actually seek out the pain, they court it and they learn to live with it. They know it is just one of the costs they will have to pay. One they willing pay each time they fight.
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