Archive for January, 2012
Show me the Money
Over the years I have heard a lot of fighters/trainers talk about sponsorship and prize money and how they deserve it.
In any sport 5% of the people earn 95% of the money, because they deserve it and have earned it. To put it in simple terms, for someone to sponsor a fighter some gloves they will have to sell 30 pairs to make their money back. If the fighter is not popular then why would anyone want to wear the gear that they use? Its not a good investment for any business to sponsor an unpopular fighter. If you are not recognized walking down the street by the general public then you are not a good athlete to sponsor.
One of New Zealand?s top wrestlers was talking to a large clothing manufacturer trying to get sponsorship for some of New Zealand?s best wrestlers. I always thought that this was a losing battle as wrestling is such a small sport in New Zealand. It is such a small sport that you could ask anyone in the street to name any wrestler in the world and it would be very hard to find someone that could actually name an international wrestler let alone a New Zealand wrestler. As no one knows anyone in the sport the gear is not going to be visible so why would they sponsor the team?
The better option that I have seen work a number of times is for the fighter and the company, be it a clothing or gear company, to work together with a little give and take from both sides. The fighter can get the gear at a cheaper rate and then that is the gear that they stick with and stay away from other brands. This can work well for trainers as they can get all the people at their club to get the gear through them, then everyone at their gym will be wearing the gear provided at a cheaper rate. This is great as the members get the gear at a cheaper rate, and the business gets their gear out there.
In short, until you are known by the general public then you will have to work with people rather than just get gear for free. Build a relationship with a business and keep with them, as it will be worth it in the long run.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
Demons are Real
Every fighter that I have trained with has demons, and they come in many different forms, but they all give the fighter the reason to get in the ring and prove themselves.
In the documentary Facing Ail, Henry Cooper says that no good fighters ever come from money. If you take a look through boxing and MMA history this is rather accurate. In boxing the best boxers are usually the immigrants (in America) – in the last generation it was the English, Irish and other Europeans now you are looking the Mexicans and South Americans. In general the immigrants had to make a life for themselves, and build up from the ground level.
One of the best examples of this is in MMA is the legendary Fedor. He grew up in Russia in a poor family and when he fights his mind set is that if he lost then him and his family would go back to being poor. That would be one of the reasons that he went 32 fights without a loss.
However being poor can?t be the main driver for being a good fighter, as there are plenty of poor people that are not good fighters and plenty of people with money who are good fighters. In my experience people who get a lot of knockouts when fighting are the fighters with the biggest demons. It is like they are fighting against something else. They also seem to have more nerves before a fight than others. Most fighters will not admit to this but all fighters are trying to prove something to themselves, in fact competitive people are all trying to prove something. Usually they are trying to prove that they are better than the next person, otherwise why compete, or that, with fighters, that they are tough enough to do it.
The key to the best fighters is that use their demons to fuel them in competition, they then believe that they are willing to go further than and deeper than their opponent. For me I believed that trained harder and more often than my opponents, this gave me the confidence that when the fight went in to the deep water that I would handle it better. What a fighter believes becomes the truth for them.
In short, if you want to get in the ring or the cage then chances are you have demons, so embrace them and use them to make you perform better. If you try to sweep them under the carpet then you are not going to go in at full strength and you will give your opponent an advantage. As Rocky says ?turn you fear in to fire? – it will either burn you up or burn up your opponent depending on how you use it.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
But I Might Fail
This year I want to get pinned in wrestling and tapped out in BJJ. For those of you who don?t know me I hate to lose so for me to say this is a big step.
Think about the best matches you have ever had in your life, be it a fight sport or a team sport or any other and I can guarantee you that it will be one of two types of games that come to mind. One where you had the perfect day and everything just fell in to place, the other would be the battle where you and the other person were evenly matched.
If you put it in terms of kick boxing, assuming that you have some skill, then if you sparred against a guy that has had three months experience then you would expect to be able to handle them with no problems in fact you would frustrated if you got caught with a good shot. On the flipside of that would be sparring with Ray Sefo, K1 Legend from NZ – you would be happy to get through sparring with your nose still in the same place and condition as it was before sparring. Out of these two sessions which one would you expect to learn more from, even if you get your arse kicked in one?
With BJJ, if you ever get a chance to roll with a Black Belt, take it – you may get tapped, and you may not get one good position the entire time. You will roll at the best level that you can and you will find out if there are any holes in your game. Compare that to rolling with a new person where you could beat them with one arm and your eyes closed.
Obviously this is the same for MMA – think of all the people that you have sparred. who do you remember and why? Chances are they are either people that are famous (of course), people who pissed you off, and the people who were just above your level and you had to work for everything and any success that you get is well deserved. In this situation something that you take for granted, a single leg down for example, all of a sudden becomes very difficult and if you get one all of a sudden a single leg becomes a big deal.
In competition this is the same. I was talking to a guy about this very thing. He was competing in BJJ and in a semi final he was up against a guy that was a higher rank and had quite the reputation on the mat for being ruthless and had never beaten him on the mat before. Going in to the match he wondered if this would be any different. It turned out that he won via submission, people watching loved this result as no one expected it. Then in the final he was up against a guy that he knew he could beat, which he did do rather easily. Now when he replays this comp in his head what match do you think he remembers the most fondly?
I believe that you would value a bronze medal that you had to fight tooth and nail for over a gold medal that you won with relative ease. Which takes me back to the start – you will get more out of competing against people who can beat you compared to an easy win. Yes you may lose which is fine just as long as you give them hell and walk away with no excuses. So compete against the best around and see what happens, you may just surprise them and more importantly yourself.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor