Could of, would of, should of….

Someone left the following comment about one of my opponents on youtube recently “I wouldn’t have quit, she should have kept going until they called the fight. That sucked!~!@“.  The fight in question was the one against Dina van den Hooven. It was a five round title fight on cagewarriors, and it was scored as a TKO in my favour when van den Hooven couldn’t come out for the fourth round. Anyhow, the comment made me think.

You get a lot of this in MMA. I guess you get it in any sport, but it’s particularly evident at fight shows. It usually comes from someone sat in the audience with a pint in each hand, yelling such useful advice as “hit him in the fuckin’ head” or “just get up!”. Then when the fight is over, we get to hear all about how they would have done better. I suppose I shouldn’t be cynical. Maybe it’s true, maybe they’re in fact a world class MMA fighter cunningly disguised as an overweight, drunken, chain smoking slob. But it seems unlikely.

You get the same thing on the forums, especially with the reality show TUF. Fighters get slated for anything which doesn’t fit with the “tough-guy” image (excuse the pun) that they’re supposed to have. The beer and pizza crew back home get to feel all smug and superior because oh no, they wouldn’t quit, or cry in training, or not make weight, or not follow their coach’s instructions, or whatever other cardinal sin this week’s fighter has committed.   

Now, I’m not saying that some of the criticisms aren’t justified. But here’s the thing. The majority of the people who go around telling their mates that the guy’s a <insert choice of adjective here> and that they could have done better really have no idea whether that’s true, because they’ve never been in that situation.

It’s one thing talking about what someone should do from the comfort of your own sofa. But actually being in there feels very different from the way it does in your imagination. I even notice this difference when I watch video of me sparring. I see something and think “ah, that’s what I should have done there”. But next time I’m in the situation to try it, I’m there thinking “shit, I forgot it felt like this”. It’s even worse when it’s a situation you’ve never been in before. Far too often I’ve looked at someone doing something and thought “I’d never do THAT”….. only to find out later that I was wrong. The truth is that we often overestimate the differences between ourselves and other people. Understanding why others do what they do comes down largely to being able to put ourselves in their shoes. This isn’t something that human beings do particularly well (“Stumbling on happiness” by Daniel Gilbert is a brilliant book that explains why).

It’s a rare, or foolhardy, fighter who can say with confidence that they’d never quit. When you fight or train at any level, you know how bad things can get in there. You know how different things look when you’re under pressure, in pain, muscles burning, struggling to get air in, semi-conscious, not sure which way is up, being hit from all directions. And you know the difference between putting in your best effort on a given day and just going through the motions, not really wanting to be there. A fighter who tells you he’s never even felt the urge during a bad sparring session to throw down his gloves and storm out of the gym is most likely a robot, a liar or not getting pushed hard enough. Some days we live up to our expectations of ourselves, other days – well, we don’t. With the right training, preparation, temprament and a bit of luck, the best we can hope for is to get our shit together when it counts. 

As for the future… well, I’m not going to tempt fate.