The Psychology of Fighting

Whatever troubles a fighter has before, during or after a fight will likely be exposed at some point.

“You can’t mask it,” said UFC and International Fight League veteran Benji Radach (Pictures). “You just got to eliminate everything -- all your weaknesses -- and go in there like you go into every fight and go in there to win. Go in there to take them out.”

In some cases, the fight-by-fight approach enables fighters to keep their perspective, even when championships or their future with an organization is at stake. Trigg, however, recalls the additional pressure he felt when he took on St. Pierre after succumbing to Hughes for a second time in 2005.


“If I lose this fight, I won’t be able to compete anymore,” he thought. “That’s a big deal.”

Trigg has not fought in the UFC since.

‘Be water my friend’

Doubt is perhaps the strongest emotion involved in a fighter’s psychological rollercoaster, which is why training for mixed martial arts is so rigorous.

In almost masochistic fashion, fighters force themselves into horrible positions to achieve a comfort level in the heat of battle. They often prepare by taking on fresh combatants consecutively during training. At Reality Self Defense in Bridgewater, Mass., they call it “shark tank” training. At American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Fla., they call it “in the s--t” training. Some gyms simply call it “rounds.”

Fighting seems a cyclical venture.

“Mentally, [a fight] washes a loss away,” Riggs said.

McCullough echoes his sentiments. The only way to overcome the pain of defeat is to “jump on the horse and start riding again.” To erase loss, a fighter must face the possibility of another.

The psychology behind fighting is complex. Moilanen asserts the most important mental element for mixed martial artists is control, an ability to stay the mind when the body is ready to break.

“[Fitch’s] mind was in the fight,” Cook said. “Every time in between rounds I was thinking, ‘This might be the last round.’ And then I’d get in there, and he was actually encouraging me.”

Fitch’s mental resilience mirrors a famous philosophy. Legendary martial artist Bruce Lee’s outlook proposed the mind -- even in its open and formless state -- determined outcomes.

“Water can flow, or it can crash; be water my friend,” Lee famously told Pierre Berton during a 1971 interview. The divergent paths suggested by the jeet kune do founder left fighters with two choices: succeed or fail.

Physical punishment is inherent in the sport of mixed martial arts. Fighters, however, identify with the sacrifice, perseverance and honor at the core of martial arts rather than the brutality and bloodlust skeptics charge them with cherishing.

Fighter psychology, in its simplest terms, is the mind persisting when the body refuses. Think about Nick Diaz (Pictures) pulling off an impossible gogoplata choke against Takanori Gomi (Pictures) despite suffering a broken orbital bone. Consider Hughes carrying Trigg across the Octagon and driving him into the canvas despite being stricken by inadvertent low blow moments earlier.

Pulver, a man who has suffered his fair share of physical pain -- including Gomi’s left hook, B.J. Penn (Pictures)’s vice-like rear naked choke and Urijah Faber (Pictures)’s razor-sharp elbows -- knows the mind conquers all.

“I was born to be a fighter. I’ve been fighting since I was old enough to stand up,” said the former UFC lightweight champion, whose childhood was laced with physical and emotional abuse at the hands of his father. “I can’t be broken in any aspect. I don’t have nothing else, you know? I’ve got nowhere else to go. I got nothing else to do. That’s what keeps me unbreakable.”