It was a bright Saturday morning. I arrived at the venue where the fight was taking place. It was a little past 3, I paid a ridiculous $30 to park, but I wasn’t worried. I met with the promoter and gave him the money for my ticket sales. 40 tickets sold, not too bad.
5PM: The NJ Athletic State Commission arrives to conduct weigh ins. After spending the morning not eating much to make sure my weight was on point, it felt like Christmas. The scale says: 133.5lb, on point.
6PM: The Doctor arrives to do pre-fight physicals. Standard questions, have you been knocked out? existing health conditions? blah, blah blah. Cleared to fight, fight time.
8PM: Rules meeting. We’re told that we are already winners for doing what many people cannot do. Also it was made noted that amateur fights don’t mean shit.
Waiting to walk out, a flurry of thoughts fill my mind. Entrance music plays, I can hear all of my friends and family going nuts. The adrenaline hits and I walk out. I step into the cage and one thing races through my mind repeatedly, “I’m really in the cage right now.” The bell rings and it goes down. It all gets hazy from here, I only remember being taken down and trying to escape a full mount. I also remember being put in an armbar, it was tight. I was about to tap, but then I started pulling for dear life, I escaped. The second round was just like the first, trying to escape the mount. This time I made the dire mistake of giving up my back. Chin tucked to defend the rear naked choke but it still gets sunk in deep. I had to tap. My first Amateur MMA loss.
Losing
It’s tough to take a big L when you trained so hard. You have many things you can do, dwell on your loss, make excuses and just be a sore loser. I was pretty pissed for a few days but everyone loses at some point. Although I didn’t get the big victory, I won many small victories. I didn’t think I was ever going to fight in the cage but I did. I trained 6 days a week preparing for the fight, something that I would never think I could do. At the end of the day I can say, I did it – I fought in the cage.
Experience
The experience tough loss made me realize what kind of talent I’d be up against in the MMA world. I know what I have to work on, I learned what mistakes I made and you can bet I won’t make them again. It’s time for me to stop bitching and get back in the gym, simple as that.
I credit the support of the boys of Mayhem365, my friends and family who came out to see my debut, my great training partners, those who valuable motivation and tips, and Cole from Fuel The Fighter. Also want to give a thanks to Limitless MMA for providing me a nice pair of fight shorts and a t-shirt.
This is just the beginning.
August 10th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
This sounds like a classic example of “failing forward.” Winning the fight would have been awesome, but maybe not as much of a learning experience. In fact it might even have set you back in the long term beccause you might’ve been tempted to rest on your laurels a bit and that’s never a good idea unless you’ve already achieved perfection, which none of us ever do. Does that make sense? Because you lost this time around, you know what you need to work on, and you’ll be that much more bulletproof the next time you step into the ring. It’s all good.
August 10th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
good job, not everyone has the nuts to fight in the cage.
do you have a video?
August 10th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Laura: Great add-on. You are totally right. Thanks for the comment and the inspiration/support you’ve provided over the last couple of months.
Galle: Thanks! I don’t have video yet.