Sherdog OpinionOpinion: The Ghosts of Fighting
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I’m a big fan of Teddy Atlas and used to regularly listen to his podcast: “The Fight.” I had grown up listening to Atlas commentate on boxing for ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights,” where he would always provide excellent technical analysis and outline exactly what a pugilist needed to do to win. Yet, that is not his main focus on his podcast. Instead, Atlas talks exhaustively about the mental side of fighting. The psychology, the confidence and the fears. This is an area of combat sports I used to underestimate and even neglect. I’ve always loved dissecting technique and felt that if you accurately summed up all of a fighter’s physical characteristics relative to an opponent, you could predict how the match would go. However, when I gambled accordingly, I kept running into problems. Occasionally, a fighter who had all the advantages—whether it was being stronger, faster, having better striking or having superior grappling—would still lose. How was this happening? After listening to Atlas’ podcast, I learned the answer. It was the mental side of fighting, one that is difficult to quantify but of paramount importance.
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However, the most humiliating loss came in December 2017, when Oliveira was pounded out by Paul Felder at lightweight. Oliveira had every conceivable advantage against Felder and should have crushed him like a bug. Instead, it was Oliveira being helplessly pummeled before a referee saved him. What happened? Oliveira ran over Felder for most of the first round, taking him down at will, attaining dominant positions—including the back and full mount—and attacking with deep guillotine chokes. He was seemingly toying with his opponent. Then, Felder managed to throw Oliveira off his back and, despite eating a few big upkicks, started landing ground-and-pound. Oliveira wasn’t gassed at this point, but he was certainly becoming discouraged. What started out as easy, one-sided domination turned into a war where he couldn’t rely on his talent alone, and he was absorbing significant damage. This was especially evident in the second round. Oliveira wasn’t physically tired, but mentally, he was in a vulnerable state. He was immediately discouraged in the striking after Felder checked his leg kick and then was discouraged in the grappling when “The Irish Dragon” defended a takedown and turned him against the fence. While he wasn’t in a bad position, Oliveira had checked out mentally, a thousand-yard stare serving as proof. Felder nailed him with powerful elbows in the clinch in the clinch, and from there, the American began pounding him from the top. Oliveira was on pure auto-pilot, but he was so talented that he had a solid kneebar attempt and almost swept Felder late in the round. However, when that didn’t work, the Brazilian gave up. Oliveira ended up tapping to strikes, showing his complete surrender to the fires of combat. Felder may have had vastly less talent, but he was mentally much tougher, having conquered adversity in a way Oliveira could not. That made the difference.
This match marked a turning point for Oliveira. Not only did he
improve his physical skills after the defeat, but he improved his
mind. He rattled off an amazing 11 wins in a row, many of them as
an underdog, while facing and vanquishing adversity many times. For
me, a key moment was when he faced Michael
Chandler for the vacant lightweight championship. Chandler
knocked down and badly hurt Oliveira in the first round. The
Brazilian was desperately trying to survive, bobbing his head back
and forth off the canvas on pure instinct as Chandler sought to
finish the job with vicious punches. Some referees might have even
stopped the match at this point, and the old Oliveira may well have
folded. This time, he managed to weather the storm and finish the
round. There was an opportunity for Oliveira to mentally give up in
the second round, too, as Chandler was still determined. Again,
Oliveira faced and overcame his demons, and he was the one who
delivered the knockout to capture the UFC lightweight crown.
Oliveira showed his mental toughness again against Dustin Poirier in a pitched, back-and-forth battle. The Brazilian had wilted in several such encounters, but it was Poirier who couldn’t handle the rage and tension of battle, as Oliveira submitted him early in the third round. So Oliveira had successfully past his mental weakness, right? The prodigal son had fulfilled his vast potential and was only going to add to his legendary legacy, right? Well, not entirely. The ghosts of his past were still there, ready to come back at the right moment. It would just take a lot more for that to happen.
We’ve seen this before—and recently. A lot of people doubted Amanda Nunes’ mental toughness when she lost by knockout to Alexis Davis and Cat Zingano in fights where she was dominating early but eventually faded and seemed to give up as her opponents rained down punches. In the midst of her legendary 12-fight winning streak that saw many cast her as the greatest women’s fighter ever, this was considered a problem she had successfully overcome. It was firmly in the past, having no relation to the current iteration of Nunes. Yet, the ghosts were not permanently exorcised, as the very same events occurred in her first fight against Julianna Pena—a far less skilled but endlessly tough opponent who refused to ever give up and never faltered in her belief that she could win.
That brings us to Makhachev. He is an all-time great fighter with tremendous talent but not quite at the same dizzying level as Oliveira. However, Makhachev has a huge advantage over the Brazilian. There was never even a shadow of a doubt about his own mental state. Makhachev is an unrelenting warrior who constantly pressures his opponents, makes smart decisions and never remotely gives in to the tension of the fight. If ever there was someone who could make Oliveira’s old demons manifest themselves once more, it was the man from Dagestan.
That is exactly what occurred. Right off the bat, Makhachev sowed the seeds with a left cross that landed flush. Oliveira must have been confident in his striking superiority, and this early exchange shook that confidence. He panicked a little, tried to go for an ill-advised takedown and, as a result, found himself on his back. To his credit, the Brazilian regained his composure, and after sustaining little damage, he managed to get back to his feet when Makhachev tried to pass guard. However, the Russian hit him with a beautiful judo hip toss in the clinch. This time, Oliveira succumbed to the tension and terror of battle, especially with the crowd roaring its approval for his opponent. Instead of attacking with submissions or working to get back to his feet, he locked on a passive closed full guard and seemed content with being on the bottom. At the end of Round 1, matters weren’t so bad for Oliveira. He had only lost a single round out of five. He hadn’t absorbed much damage or expended much energy. Mentally, however, he was in a precarious state. With little strategy, he sleepwalked through the beginning of Round 2, wading forward, getting hit with blows and foolishly wandering into another clinch. If he wasn’t so psychologically wounded, he would have been dancing around the ring, hitting Makhachev with punches and kicks from range. They eventually disengaged, but again, Oliveira kept wading forward, hoping he could use that ever-present superior talent to land the necessary shots. Makhachev just stayed calm and kept making good decisions, hitting the Brazilian every time he waded forward. Then it happened. Oliveira went for a nonsensical, ill-advised jumping switch knee, the equivalent of closing his eyes and hoping for a home run to rescue him from the flames of combat. He was immediately punished with a right hook from Makhachev that put him down. Makhachev was on him like a shark, working for an arm-triangle. Rather than fighting hard to recover and continue the battle, Oliveira did the same thing he had done against Felder late in the Round 2. He gave up. With plenty of opportunity to hold his trapped right hand with his left or otherwise resist, he tapped out quickly. The ghosts had not only come back, but they had defeated the Brazilian yet again.
Thus, we learn a powerful lesson about the raw nature of mixed martial arts combat. Mental doubt and fear are enemies fighters must battle and resist in addition to the physical opponent in front of them. Even when they have done so successfully many times, under enough stress, those pernicious ghosts are always ready to return.
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