Underestimating the Underdog

The beauty of mixed martial arts for me as a spectator sport, apart from the raw, aggressive athleticism and skill is the unpredictable nature of the combative contests. Fighting in martial arts ranges from striking on the feet with perhaps lethal Muay Thai Boxing before muscling your opponent to the mat with brute wrestling and transitioning between sick Brazilian Jiu Jitsu positions to secure a limb or choke for a well earned W.  There are infinite combinations of the Arts that may lead to victory, as well as martial clinics in individual Arts that may alone decide a bout. Out of all this uncertainty on how a bout may end up playing out, there is one factor that remains constant. The unknowingness of who will win, there are so many times when I personally as a fan forget that every fight starts off even. There is a blank canvas for fighters to fight upon and express themselves. Whatever majesty they paint on the canvas with blood, sweat, tears and sheer determination of will, fuelled by a burning hunger, is their own doing. I have learnt one too many times to write any given man off at my peril.

So often in the young history of this fantastic sport have men, equals, being spoke down and begrudged their right to be given due consideration, and then some. It’s never enough to just look at a fight and its combatants on paper and construe what should play out using an MMA calculator. The essence of the sport, on which it thrives and breathes, is made up of so many intangibles. Heart, courage, will, belief, honesty and spirit are amongst the intangibles that are not always conventional buttons on one’s calculator. Sure every man is human and as such has his limits, but, when pushed to his limits man sometimes can overcome the most insurmountable obstacles with merit as easily as he can be crushed by said challenges. There are a fabled plethora of outcomes within the sport where great men fell to men who found their own greatness in the adversity that stood before them and that weighed upon them and against them before they ever set foot in an octagonal cage or squared ring.

Perhaps one of my most interesting bouts, especially when acknowledging MMA maths, is the recent tussle of Chael Sonnen v Nate Marquardt at UFC 109. Marquardt arrived on the scene after torching Demian Maia within a minute of the first round of their respective bout, who interestingly was a conqueror of his opponent Sonnen. If anything one could be forgiven almost, but not quite, for writing Sonnen off such was the class that Maia dispatched him with but yet could not replicate against Marquardt. Anyway, the odds were stacked in Marquardts favour and people decried that Sonnen had no business in the octagon with arguably the MW no. 1 contender. How true it was that he who laughs last, laughs hardest. Sonnen disproved all his doubters on route to a thoroughly dominating unanimous decision against a man he wasn’t supposed to beat.

The Todd Duffee hype machine rolled into Las Vegas last week at UFC 114 where his juggernaut was destined to face the articulated lorry of Mike Russow in a clash of monster proportions. Monstrous also were the expectations of the Duffman after he laid out Canadian primary school teacher Tim Hague in a historic UFC finish of 7 seconds at UFC. Even more monstrous though were the odds being levelled in Duffees favour, essentially Russow was been given no chance. How could he have a chance? This was one of the UFC’s breed of new hungry lions at HW where they go about killing fools within the first round for shits and giggles. And so the fight began to play out, despite progressing beyond the first round Duffee was owning him but just couldn’t find a finish. Boom! Russow sends him to earth with a thunderous shot found roaring in angst against all the naysayers, myself included.  

The former fight stuffed more than a Team Jackson game plan, it discounted what the general MMA enthusiast thought they knew would happen and gave a fairytale ending to the unlikeliest of men who himself believed. In contrast the latter played to many an MMA fans fantasy vision of proceedings before battering them into a miserable misprediction. What both share though is that a fight is there to be fought, it is never won before one enters the ring if you have the intangibles to compete. Trust not in the wisdom of others but in the work you put in, the fire in your belly and the fact that no man can bring more than his own body and mind to the cage. You match that and its game on, it is all to play for when you step inside these modern coliseums and if you realise this then you realise that everyone has a chance. However small. Never underestimate the underdog, broken, beat and scarred they may dog it out and prove you wrong. Once again.