Are the cost of losses too great in MMA? Alex Davis believes they very well may be

Cain Velasquez

You know, one thing that seems off to me in MMA is the cost of losses to an athlete’s career in the sport.

We all are looking for exciting fights; we want these guys to go out there and let it all hang out. But when a fighter does that, he must risk losing. In many great fights, the loser might have won if he had gone out there and played it safe. Instead, the guy goes out there, stands in the middle of the ring, and slugs it out, right? And when you do that, it is a lottery.

You might be winning – and bam! – out of nowhere, you get clipped, and down you go!

It’s fun to watch. That’s what makes us all sit at the edges of our seats. But then, one guy is all smiles when his hand is lifted while the other guy sulks out of the octagon with a new loss on his record. He went out there and risked taking that loss in order to put up a great fight. But that goes on his record as a loss, no matter how great, how exciting, how hard he fought and how that blemish got there.

It seems to me contradictory, that we want these guys to go out there and risk everything and put on a great fight yet then punish them because they lost doing exactly what we are asking of them, when maybe they could have played it safe and grinded out a win! And this is proven if you look at the guys that had a bad run, took some losses, and then remade themselves – guys who looked at what was not working, changed things, and came back and made new runs. The rosters are full of cases like this.

There is not a fighter walking the earth that cannot be beaten. They are all humans, who have good days and bad days.

A lot of people do not remember the days when MMA was big in Japan. There was one big difference in the scenario there. When someone came out and gave everything he had, fought his heart out, even losing, he had the public’s respect. It was not about the loss but how you lost. Japanese fans would stand up and praise the loser. And the promotion would bring him back! And maybe he would do the same again, and lose again, but he would still be a hero.

Somehow, the cost of a loss is too expensive. We are asking these guys to let it all hang out, but when they do that and sometimes pay the price for the risk taken, we tend to abandon the loser. The whole system is set up that way. We want perfect records, but we are not looking at how those records were obtained! There are guys out there with 30-0 records because they did not fight anyone and because they never risked their asses!

What do we want? Perfect records or great fights? That’s what it comes down to!
This is one part of the sport that needs to be revisited. I think a lot of great fighters just stopped because of the cost of those losses. A lot of other great fighters, we never get to see in the big events, for the same reason. They go out, and give as good as they get, and doing that, sometimes lose. But because of losses like that on their records, they never get a chance at the light. Somehow, the way those losses happen should come into the equation.

What do we want? A sport with a bunch of winners that win because they do not takes risks? Or a sport with guys that go out there and lay everything down, give us great moments to remember, but take losses sometimes because of their efforts?

Alex Davis is a lifelong practitioner of martial arts and a former Brazilian judo champion. A founding member of American Top Team, Davis currently oversees the careers of a number of prominent Brazilian fighters, including Edson Barboza, Rousimar Palhares, Antonio Silva and Thiago Tavares, among others. Davis is a frequent contributor to MMAjunkie.com, sharing his current views on the sport built through his perspectives that date back to the Brazilian roots of modern MMA.