Issue 056
November 2009
As much as I love this sport, sometimes I can’t help but feel like I’m stuck in a relationship with one of those crazy girlfriends you stay with because the emotional roller coaster of being together balances out the extreme stress the experience puts you through. You know they’re trouble, but you gut it out and, though you spend much of the time questioning your sanity, there are moments that thrill you like nothing else and you realize that it is actually all worth it in the end.
Almost everyone I’ve encountered in the sport, from the lowest-level fighter to the highest-paid pro, feels like this sometimes. That’s because, like many who work in highly stressful occupations, people involved in MMA are prone to experiencing burnout.
Burnout is a recognized condition that can affect people from all walks of life. No matter how much someone loves what they do, too much of a good thing can be bad for you. When you’re involved in something as consuming as the world of professional fighting, it is easy to experience overload.
One of the contributing factors is that this is a sport where the rewards are great and the punishments severe. Another is over-exposure. We’re nowhere near saturation point, but big events are happening with an increasing frequency. It can be hard to get excited for the third or fourth event in as many weeks when you’re still recovering from the first.
This doesn’t apply to fans as much as it does to those working in the industry, but it’s important that fans understand this. Jaded hacks such as myself are certainly prone to it, as are the poor guys busting their balls to bring these events to you, but there is one group of people who are especially likely to be affected at one point or another.
Fighters suffer from it big time. As athletes who have often turned their hobby into their livelihood, you’d think they’d be overjoyed that they’re making money from something they love and that they should be skipping into the gym with joy every single day.
Not so. For many of these guys, making it to the point where they can support themselves through their fighting can be a long and arduous process. They’ve shed blood, sweat and tears in many a long sparring session, sacrificed everything from careers to relationships and even their own well-being to get where they are. It’s not hard to see how they might hit a point where they simply feel like giving it all up to go hang at the beach every day and go surfing. Downgrading to a life where the pressures of the cage are far, far away can seem mighty appealing.
Even the fighters operating at the highest level can get a bit sick of it all. Some can’t get in the cage more than a couple of times a year because of the massive physical and emotional toll the fight preparation takes out of them. Six to eight weeks of your life is a long time to spend getting ready for one night of action, and fighters will sometimes need to rest as long, if not twice as long, as their fight camp before they can repeat it through again.
Overtraining and burnout go hand in hand. Quite often a fighter doesn’t even realize they’re burnt out. Sometimes you actually need someone to tell you when to back off, and by the time you realize you’re there, it’s too late. The same goes for anyone involved in the business – eating, breathing and living MMA 24-7 can leave you a dried-up husk of a person. You’ll suddenly crave a life in an industry where nothing exciting ever happens, maybe a nice quiet job in a cubicle selling paperclips or something.
Imagine if you will the inhuman effort someone such as Dana White must make to remain motivated. This is a man who rarely stops traveling. He has admitted in the past to spending maybe four days a month at home with his family, the rest of his time is spent criss-crossing the globe furthering the UFC’s expansion.
Does he ever get frustrated, tired and fed up of this business? Probably. What about the lackeys, the front liners, those who do his bidding? Is he in command of a ship where every sailor sings a jaunty tune as they toil, or a band of grumbling grunts that bear their work with a grimace? That they keep going forward speaks volumes of their commitment.
Rekindling the fire is essential – taking a break to stay fresh seems to work for most, but how do you stay motivated when you’re dealing with MMA constantly? Ensuring you strike a work–life balance so that the extreme demands the sport places on you don’t leave you a dribbling wreck is one way, but I’ve got another: Fire up YouTube, search for MMA highlights (I find Boondock’s to be particularly good for this), sit back and enjoy. If they don’t recharge your enthusiasm for the sport, it might be time to think about packing it in.
