Study Finds Fear Runs High in Mixed Martial Artists

It takes a special kind of man to be able to be an elite fighter. The entire idea of willfully subjecting yourself to unarmed combat is kind of… well, dumb. But as they say- if you’re gonna be dumb, you’ve gotta be tough.

Good morning Brent. Thanks for sharing. It would help if you mentioned that you have to have to register and sign in to access the article.

Thanks for sharing.

Good read.

This makes me think of watching MMA or Kickboxing from Japan

The manliest thing is being brave enough to cry afterwards.

Butchered quote:
“Bravery isn’t about being fearless in the face of danger. It is taking action despite the fear.”

Being unafraid of danger isn’t courage, it’s stupid. The difference between fighters and the general population is that they learn to manage their fear.

Frank Mir’s talked about how he’s scared to death before a fight and he goes through this litany of “oh my God what have I gotten myself into” thoughts. In the post-fight after he beat Nogueira (the first time), he said he’d never been more scared in his life than when he walked down the ramp. But then he goes out and looks cool as a cucumber.

I took a sociology of gender class in college a few years back and it dealt with these same issues how we as guys are sometimes expected to stuff feelings of doubt, fear and shame when we lose. Sometimes, it doesn’t work. Remember Forest erupting into tears after the Jardine fight? Also, this stuff has gotten better for us guys actually since the 80s and 90s. Guys are now more willing to their coaches and buddies when they have self doubt. Jon Jones showed it to Greg Jackson after round one of his fight this weekend. Anyway, we have the bro hug now and I don’t even mind when fighters cry after fights. Things aren’t all that bad.

I find it incredbile how some people show virtually no fear in the cage but they have the same reaction to the fight as surely all of us would. I think TUF has done a decent job of showing how nervous some fighters are, especially knowing whats on the line. The not being able to sleep, throwing up, crying, ect. My friend described his first fight as a massive adredaline dump. Competitveness in guys plays a huge factor. Its embarassing when someone shows you up in basketball which is a team sport and youre not singled out as much. I couldnt imagine everyone just watching you and your opponent and everything lying on your shoulders. We see how most baseball players react to striking out.

Women also fight. They also control their fear. Is this because these women are reflecting a cultural mandate to be “real men”?

Maybe fighters control their fear because they wouldn’t be very good at fighting if they didn’t.

a lot of strong men are ruled by the fear of looking weak, or looking stupid.

both were years ago, yet those intense visceral feelings remain, from deep embarrassment and shame to pure rage. Many athletes (and people) have to deal with fear of failure, but it’s a different ballgame when failure includes the experience of getting beat up. Getting handled in a fight is such a unique and terrible experience- from the dulled thump of fists hitting your head to the sharp pain of facial skin breaking, it’s really a one of a kind humiliation and if you’ve experienced that, you’re going to have a very specific fear of going through it again, whether man, woman or child.

I don’t agree with the gender identity stuff, I mean, of course it exists, but it’s better now than it’s ever been, just like it’ll be better in 5 years than it is now. Fighters regularly (Leben, Barry, Mir, Jones, etc.) admit to feeling fear prior to fights to the point of questioning what they’re even doing, and there’s no negative backlash from fans for verbalizing those feelings. Basically, I agree that those feelings exist within the fighter community, I’m just not sure how much is attributable to gender identity traits.

Some of these quotes are Things I’ve said to myself verbatim. We know our opponent experience fear and nervousness… But for some reason you don’t truly realize it. Ive fought, I’ve reassured fighters. I’ve doubted myself and I’ve risen to the occasion and it’s never really sinks in that everyone experiences that until you are reminded of it by seeing something like this. This article was written just for me because I really needed to read this. Now I want to book my next fight, lol.

Although MMA fighters’ emotion management may appear unique, it reflects a long-lived cultural mandate that “real men” control their fear and other emotions (Kimmel 1996).

This is very true. Men and even boys being told to control their emotions and fears is a big part of our society. I remember this one time I was about seven or eight. I was riding my bike and my father was running next to me. I remember I wanted to show off for my father, so I let go of the handlebars and put my hands in the air to show how I could ride my bike without my hands. I had done this many times in the past with no problems, but this time I hit a rock and lost control. It was a really bad wipe out. Like, really bad. I had blood everywhere and I remember crying. My dad ran up to me, looked and me and laughed, saying, “Stop crying.” I remember looking at him and immediately I stopped crying. Then later that night he reinforced it to me, saying that the only time it is acceptable for a man to cry is when he is mourning the death of his parents.

A second time, when I was older, about fifteen, I once again fell off my bike and this time I had a big hole in my knee. I remember limping home with blood everywhere. When I got home, my mother freaked out and insisted I go to the hospital. My father, however, told me to man up and that I didn’t need to go to the hospital. I still have a large scar on my knee from the cut not healing properly.

I think the moral of the story is clear: I suck at riding bikes. Seriously though, I think the way we treat boys and our expectations of them has to be re-examined.

Your getting into a cage with another man who wants to smash your face in. Being scared is perfectly normal. I’ve heard stories of guys puking and freaking out before a fight, and then totally changing once the bell rings.

Don’t be scared homie.

Even in the weeks leading up to it, I was feeling sick with nerves. Made me train so much harder, cut weight harder and then the fight was all over in 1:30. One of my coaches grabbed me at one point and said “people that get nervous like this and get put in these situations enjoy their lives more”. That definitely stuck

I couldn’t even imagine the nerves going into something like that. When two guys have coma inducing power (specifically Belfort vs Silva) My nerves shoot through the roof. Granted, I’m not the poster boy for manliness (my adrenaline dumps usually involve crying)