Issue 071

January 2011

This month, UFC welterweight contender Dan Hardy reflects on his shock loss to Carlos Condit...

Well, I didn’t see that coming! 

After a loss, it’s common to analyze it and try to figure out what went wrong. Not trying to find an excuse for it, but a reason that the fight went the way it did – as a way of learning. The fact of the matter is, I got caught. I threw a punch, dropped my hand a little and got put on my ass. Not the first time, and not the last I imagine, but one that I have been analyzing for a couple of weeks now. 

In the grand scheme of things it’s relatively minor. I will look back at it like I do with my other losses, as a turning point and a lesson well learned. I’m not bitter about it. Annoyed, of course. But that’s the nature of sport. The key is getting back in the gym and working through it. After a loss I usually want to sit around on the sofa, eating cookies and watching cartoons, mourning the end of my career and offering my soul to the devil to go back a week in time.

One thing a loss is good for: it makes you honest with yourself. Honest about where you are and what needs to be done, like a lungful of ice-cold morning air wakes you up better than anything else. It forces you to take a step back and look at the situation objectively. Going through each day in training camp to see if I strayed off my diet, if my focus was there for all of the sessions, whether I was getting enough rest. Not necessarily things that would have stopped that punch from landing but things that can be improved on next time.

The reality is nothing I could’ve done differently would’ve helped avoid what happened. At some point in a fight you will be exposed to a punch or two, especially if you’re a fighter who doesn’t mind taking a few risks. Sometimes I just like to march forward swinging left hooks at my opponent, much to the despair of my corner team! I was just starting to enjoy myself, finding my range and getting excited about landing my big shot. And ‘Bam!’ I’m on my ass with a doctor trying to hold me down. That’s when the ‘PLM’ or ‘Post Loss Mourning’ kicks in...

So I spend a couple of days being pissed off and feeling sorry for myself, forgetting to do basic things like eat and shower. Then I hit the second stage of ‘PLM’. That’s the analytical stage, dissecting the fight a move at a time before going onto the training camp, analyzing session by session. Picking fault in things and criticizing the last eight weeks of your life, down to the smallest factors such as using the wrong shorts to spar in! After a day or so of this you start to find plenty that can be improved for next time, and the cookies start tasting good again. This is followed by the positive thinking stage that we all know and love, where you can dust yourself off and pack a bag for the gym. 

The last camp was good; really good in fact. I had no injuries, my week was planned out better, my team and coaches were consistent and reliable plus I added a new jiu-jitsu coach to my team in Victor Estima. I felt that things physically and technically went great and wouldn’t change a thing. I stepped into the fight feeling strong and confident; the only thing that felt wrong was my attitude. Going back to March and the GSP fight, by the time it got to fight week I had heard so many times that I wasn’t going to get to the second round that when the final bell rang I felt like I had achieved something.

Never before in my career did I forgive myself for losing a fight, but I think after that fight a part of me did. As a traditional punishment after a loss, I always shave my head. I think of it as a reset button, the turning over of a new page and starting out fresh again. It’s the one thing I didn’t do after the GSP fight, and the reason why was that I felt a sense of achievement. I’m annoyed with myself again now, thinking about it as I type. But, like I said, a loss makes you honest with yourself, and evidently with the readers of Fighters Only magazine!

So here I am, in the final stage of Post Loss Mourning, with my hair shaved down to the wood, looking forward to a good 2011. With this wretched year at my back and the lessons learned firmly stuffed in my back pocket, for reading material on the journey forward. It’s back to California and back to work, with a new haircut and a new hunger to trade punches with the best of them.