The Laws of the Ring (23 page)

From my vantage point, the people by the river had gone through horrible times, maybe as a result of their own poor decisions, but while their habits may have been poor—boozing the day away isn't exactly the best way to improve an impoverished living situation—their attitudes weren't. I carry this thought and those visions with me in times of fear and doubt. I know I need to have healthier habits than the folks on the river, but their strength—their ability to survive—rests on a positive foundation and the human instinct to find a way to survive.

Life is a series of choices, and your lifestyle is sculpted by the choices you make. Much like a river changing course over time, the lifestyle alterations you make might not yield immediate, readily apparent results. Small choices add up, and each positive choice you make increases confidence and dispels fear.

F
or a professional fighter, a job that not many choose, fear is a constant threat. You can have short-term fears: Can I beat this guy? Will I get injured? But I can't end this chapter without discussing the thing that's on everyone's mind. The
long-term
fears of brain damage. Will I be able to walk and talk when I'm fifty?

The question is uncomfortable but unavoidable. I remember watching a documentary about Muhammad Ali and thinking,
Man, every one of these guys is punch-drunk.
That scared me a little, but then I go into analysis mode and come up with reasons why I shouldn't freak out about my future. We all play these justification games with ourselves, and I'm no different. For one, I'd like to think my sport is different. My background is in wrestling, so I didn't spar or do any stand-up training until I was twenty-four. There are so many different disciplines in MMA and not all of them require taking repeated blows to the head as part of the training.

At the same time I'm not in denial about the dangers. As time goes by, I understand that what I'm doing is taking a physical toll on my body. That means I have to listen to my body. I have to train smarter.

I attended a UFC tutorial on the long- and short-term impact of concussions, a constant worry in any combat sport. As the teachers discussed the symptoms, I started thinking:
Did I get one here? Did I get one in this fight? Is that why I felt that way?
They made me aware of factors I never would have considered—for instance, you don't spar when you have a headache. Protective gear during training is no longer something I use when I feel like it; it's a mandatory part of the process. The potential for head injury has caused me to choose my training partners carefully and to rest on days when I might not want to.

You have to take all of this into account, but in the end I have to remind myself that life is about taking calculated risks. The risk is always going to be there, but the trick is to eliminate the type of risk you can control.

Fear is weakness. Fear is controllable, even though it's not always rational. You can destroy fear through preparation. My landscaper friend who walked into the cage shaking and quivering before getting his ass kicked was really afraid of his own lack of preparation. His refusal to train or put together a coherent plan created the fear. He was in it for the wrong reasons, which meant his sense of purpose was not well defined, and this showed in his performance.

But what was he afraid of? It wasn't his opponent, because he didn't know his opponent from a stranger on the street. He was afraid of himself, and the terrible position he put himself in by attempting to have the life of a professional fighter without putting in the work.

In most cases, fighters and nonfighters alike feel fear when they feel vulnerable. This vulnerability does not stem from a fear of bodily harm, but from a fear of failure. This failure can take many forms: failure to provide for your family, failure to live up to external expectations, failure to progress through the socioeconomic strata at the so-called right pace.

Stop and consider this: Failure, and your sense of it, is in the mind, which makes fear of failure controllable. Until you stop living, you will not fail. Life is nothing but second chances and new opportunities. If you put together a good plan and follow it—whether it's a plan for a fight or for a job interview—your fear will dissolve
substantially
. And if you learn from your failures but eliminate feelings of regret and remorse, you can overcome fear of failure. You just need the creativity and fearlessness to find those second chances and new opportunities.

There are only two things that you have to do in life: You have to die, and you have to live until you die. The rest is up to you.

The 32nd Law of Power

The Dignity of the Good Loss

W
hen I was taking classes in human development at UC Davis, I read a study about kindergarten boys. First the researchers spoke to each boy, individually and privately, and they asked one simple question: Who's the toughest boy in your class?

Their answers were nearly unanimous: “I am.”

For the second part of the study, the boys were all lined up in the same room. They were asked the same question.

Forced to look around at the other boys and assess their place in the toughness hierarchy, the boys had vastly different answers. Nearly every one of them pointed to one of their classmates—it didn't matter which one—and said, “He is.”

To me, this shows we have an innate ability for self-assessment. These boys talked big and talked to impress when none of their peers were in hearing distance. After all, how was some researcher going to know if he was tough or not? In that scenario, there was really no perceived consequence for boasting of toughness.

The dynamic changes when we're faced with consequences. When all your buddies are standing there, they're going to call you on your boast. If one of the weakest boys in the class stood in front of all the other boys and said, “I'm the toughest,” there would be a response. He'd be laughed at, maybe, or someone would tell about the time he saw Little Billy crying in the bathroom when he lost a kickball game.

Worse yet, the other boys might decide to make Little Billy prove his assertion. In that case, it's a far safer and more realistic strategy to point to a kid down the line.

There's always going to be someone bigger than you, smarter than you, or savvier than you. This is part of why developing a who's-who network is so important. Collaboration brings out the best in the individual as well as in the group.

But it also brings up a larger point that is often lost in our win-at-all-costs culture: You have to learn how to lose. Losing is inevitable, and losing with dignity is a lost art. Knowing you gave it your best and leaving without excuses is one of the best traits a person can display.

We all lose. You might be in sales and lose out on a big account. You might be a contractor who gets underbid on an important project. You might be a newspaper reporter who gets scooped on a story.

The hardest thing is to lose with class. We need to teach this to more young people. I have seen kids who are unable to process defeat. Parents don't ever want their kids to be disappointed, and losing can come as a shock. It breaks them down. Parents aren't doing their kids any favors by pretending disappointment is an avoidable part of life.

As the kindergartners in the study showed, it's ingrained in us to understand the harsh realities of our own strengths and weaknesses—our own wins and losses. Teaching self-esteem is valuable, but understand something: Deep down,
the kids know where they stand.
They know who's tough and who's smart and who's attractive to the opposite sex. This won't change, no matter how much society attempts to ignore it or will it out of existence.

The trick—and this is where parents come in—is learning how to deal with the harsh reality of defeat.

My job is the easy part. For me, the worst part of losing has nothing to do with my win-loss record or my status in the sport or how it might affect my future. The worst part of losing is thinking about all the people who follow me and help me and lose right along with me. My ego might take a temporary hit, especially if I feel I've lost to an inferior opponent, but I can deal with that. The ones who concern me are the people who are attached to my journey and sometimes living vicariously through me. They don't get the release and the rush of competition that I get in the cage. They often feel far worse after a loss than I do. (
Especially
Virgil.)

My philosophy is pretty basic: I know there are times when you plan it right, train it right, and fight it right—and still lose. There are times when the other guy is just plain better. There's absolutely no shame in owning up to that.

I lost twice to a very good fighter named Mike Brown. The two losses couldn't have been more different, but together they provided me with a lesson on how to handle defeat.

Our first fight took place on November 5, 2008, at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida. In the first round, I was doing really well. I came out strong and felt I was controlling the fight from the beginning.

That all changed when I did a jumping-back elbow that coincided with one of Brown's overhand rights. I managed to clothesline myself, jumping into the air and directly into his fist. From there, it was a quick and inglorious fall to the canvas, flat on my back. Not even close to the way I'd planned it.

It looked really bad. It didn't seem that bad to me at the time, but looking at it from the television camera's point of view after the fight, I have to say it was bad. I went right to the ground, Brown jumped on me and I was on the ground trying to fend off his punches when the referee stopped the fight.

At 2:23 of the first round, it was over. I'd been in far worse situations than that—I wasn't unconscious, for one thing—so immediately after the fight I felt agitated and a little cheated. Remember, a fighter isn't always rational, or even close to it, when it comes to his personal well-being. While I was on the ground, figuring out the angles that would allow me to throw Brown and return to my feet, I wasn't dwelling on the punch that put me on my back. It was history, old news, and all that mattered was the task of righting myself and getting back to winning the fight. You have to forget fast in this business, and part of my surprise at the stoppage of the fight stemmed from my ability to put bad breaks—in this case, a punch to the face following a fluky confluence of events—behind me and move on. It happened, it was over, and I was moving on. But
my
opinion didn't count.

There's an empty feeling that comes with any loss, but the total unexpectedness of this one hit me hard. Making matter worse was not only the fact that this fight—like all fights—involved months of training but also the fact that when I lose, I like to feel I've expended every micro-ounce of energy from my body. The only way to lose is full force, full effort. I like to be stomped out, and to have the ref call the fight with me unconscious, in a heap. In this fight, that didn't happen.

It sounds drastic, even masochistic, but it's the truth. This is the game I chose, and that's how it works. And that's why referees exist—to keep guys like me, who will keep fighting as long as we remain conscious, from putting ourselves in serious physical danger. Someone has to watch out for us because we're too consumed by the moment to do it ourselves.

That's why I couldn't blame the ref. I could sense right away—from the reaction of the crowd, especially—that it looked like I was in serious danger. And of course, after the fight, I had to answer questions about what happened. That's just part of the job.

The only words I could muster as I stood there in the cage, in front of a jam-packed arena, were, “I apologize to all my fans out there. Congratulations to Mike Brown—what a great win for him. I'll be back.”

That was all I said, and all I felt I needed to say. I had to acknowledge to myself that the referee did his job; I didn't do mine. I found myself in a bad position, and I couldn't get out of it.

Despite the emptiness that was welling up inside me, I apologized to my fans and congratulated my opponent. When I got home to Sacramento, my pop came up to me and told me he was proud. He might actually have been happier in that moment than he'd have been if I'd
won
the fight.

“ ‘Congrats to Mike Brown, what a great win for him,' ” he said with his big smile and a chuckle, repeating my words to me. “That was really cool.”

I didn't have any ulterior motives in saying what I said—I honestly felt apologetic about my performance—but apparently, I gained fans that night. Even though I lost.

The response after the fight made me think more clearly about my definitions of winning and losing. Don't get me wrong . . . right after the fight I felt the blow to my ego and thought about how this loss might affect my career. But in the end, my simple words, and my acknowledgment of the people who helped get me in the cage that night, strengthened my reputation, and as a result, my personal credit in the fight community grew. Now, I ask you, how can something like
that
be considered a loss?

As a society, we've lost the dignity of the good loss. Everything is win or lose, black and white. The public discourse is shockingly elementary: If you win, you're great; if you lose, you suck.

Just imagine this hypothetical scene: Peyton Manning loses the AFC Championship and says he feels great after the loss. He's happy and wants everyone to know that he and his teammates did all they could do and still lost.

What would be the reaction to that? How would the public perceive Manning? What would sportswriters write about him? He would probably be vilified as someone who didn't care enough, when in truth his words are saying the opposite. If you have a plan for success and execute it to the best of your ability—leaving nothing behind in your quest to achieve victory—you can and should be happy with yourself even in defeat.

The Monday following my loss to Mike Brown, I had to board a flight for Mexico City for a tour promoting the fight I had just lost. There was a one-week delay in airing the fight in Mexico, where it would be shown on free television. I remembered what Dana White had told me the night we had dinner with Lorenzo Fertitta at the Hard Rock after the UFC had purchased the WEC:
Do the PR we have set up for you.
In all fairness, the trip had been planned before the fight, and as the face of the WEC, I understood that I had to be a team player. But it wasn't easy, pumping up the broadcast without letting anyone know what happened:
Hey, everybody in Mexico, tune in to watch me lose a fight and look really bad in the process. Come watch me end my thirteen-fight winning streak and lose the WEC featherweight title, which I've held for almost three years.

I did interview after interview in Mexico telling the people, “Watch this fight. You're going to love it,” but every time the lights went on and the questions started, I fought a lump in my stomach and worked hard not to let my pride get the best of me. It wasn't easy.

I was going through this torture knowing there was a carrot at the end of the stick. Shortly before the first Brown fight, I bought a quarter of an oceanfront penthouse in Puerto Vallarta from my mom and stepdad Tom. The housing market was beginning its collapse, and they needed to get out from under this purchase, so I cashed them out (for a good deal, of course, on the price) to keep the spot for our family.

When the promotional work for the fight ended, I asked the WEC people if they could send me directly to Puerto Vallarta instead of sending me home. They agreed, and I looked forward to spending a few days soaking in the sun and feeling sorry for myself. That was about the extent of my plan.

Predictably, my first order of business when I arrived in Puerto Vallarta was to get some beers and sit on the beach. I was planning on sitting there for two or three days, staring out at the ocean and thinking about the loss.

Within an hour—and maybe two beers—all I could think about was how beautiful my surroundings were. The weather was great, the view was spectacular, and I just couldn't bring myself to feel bad. I tried hard to, I really did. But then I started thinking of all the positives in my life. I was healthy, I was happy, I had gone through my worst night as a professional and come away injury-free and with some new goals. I was—at that very moment—sitting on the same sand that anyone in Mexico could sit on if they had two legs and a butt to plop down on, and it was awesome. Mapping out my next step was easy: get back on the horse as soon as I was back in the States, and hold my head high.

I put the beer down. I got dressed and went out. I met a hot chick and took her out to dinner. I found myself smiling and laughing and forgetting all about Mike Brown. All my plans to hold a three-day pity party went out the window. I just couldn't feel sorry for myself.