Apr 10
26
Garcia and Jung Deliver for MMA and Fans
Watching the donnybrook that was the Garcia/Jung three round slug-fest, I got a sense of deja vu. Yes, we had seen that fight before, on the finale of the very first season of “The Ultimate Fighter.” That night, on free TV, Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin went to war as they battled each other for a contract with the UFC, and battled skeptics that thought MMA would never be a mainstream sport. That fight changed hearts and minds, and won over a lot of people.
For the WEC (even if the brand wasn’t on the event), Garcia and Jung had that same moment. But this time, it was different. For Griffin and Bonnar, many had become invested in them having watched them earn their way into that fight over several weeks of reality TV. This past weekend, most people had no idea who Jung was, and may have only been aware of Garcia on a peripheral level. Yet again, on free TV, fans got to see what it’s like when two people with heart, drive, and determination are ready to leave it all in the cage.
What is it about those fights that turned skeptics into fans? Was it the non-stop action? The ridiculous amounts of punishment doled out and taken? The “cheshire cat” grin on Garcia’s face despite Jung’s attempt at forced orthodontia?
No. What attracts people to these fights is commonly referred to as “heart.” These men don’t just love to fight, they love to get in that cage and have their mettle tested, and for them, there’s nothing better than a fight where they know they’re so evenly matched, it may just be that very last ounce of effort and desire that gets them the win. So they both pour literally everything in them into that fight. After that, they start siphoning energy off of the crowd in an attempt to get the win.
These guys didn’t go out there trying to make history. They went out there to test themselves in the spirit of competition. They refused to quit, refused to give up, refused to stop even when broken hands and exhaustion would have dictated the end for any of us. Each man knew that with every punch they landed, with every punch they absorbed, they became better. Towards the end of the fight, it stopped being about winning … you could see it in them both. It became about knowing that with each and every second, they were pushing past their own potential. Winning stopped being enough for them.
It was exhilarating.
Yes, the fight was sloppy (as was Griffin/Bonnar), but the reason why fans love to see this stuff is because we sense when a fight stops being about the fight and starts being about something transcendent. We overuse the word “warrior” when talking about fighters, but these two men weren’t just warriors in that cage, they were Spartans, elite fighters that won’t stop until they’re dead (and even that might not have stopped “The Korean Zombie”).
When fans complain that a fighter is boring, they’re only expressing in a limited fashion that they’re not seeing this same resolve to push past their own limits and grow right before our eyes. It’s always fun to see a stoppage or knockout. But when a fight goes the distance, not because one fighter dominated, but because the scales were so even that each knew anything might tip them in their favor, the “go for broke” attitude becomes infectious. We all believe, on a visceral level, that we, too, can be that kind of person. Any fighter with elite wrestling skills can “ride” an opponent for three rounds, but when that opponent executes escapes, refuses to stay down, and now it becomes a chess match on the ground, each man becomes better … and that’s what fans respond to.
We live vicariously through these incredible physical specimen on a nearly weekly basis, a primitive catharsis as we return to our desks and cubicles Monday morning. The last thing we want to do is go back to work with$50 less dollars in our pocket thinking, “Even I could have taunted Demian Maia and refused to fight him.” We want to have that elated feeling that we saw two men represent everything we love about MMA and everything we love about being men … and then hope that there’s just a little bit of that inside us.
When Dana White tells fighters to “leave it all in the cage”, this is what he’s talking about. Not just being self-serving, he’s telling these guys to reach down deep and find out what they’re really made of, because that moment may only come once. And as a fan, it’s what he wants to see, too. Everyone who ever became a fan of MMA saw a fight like this, and MMA needs more of them. WEC had the perfect confluence of events to set the stage for their moment to shine, and Garcia/Jung truly left everything in the cage.