“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” – Gloria Steinem
The king is dead, long live the king.
On Saturday night, Illia Topuria’s atomic right hand brought an end to the dominant four-year title reign of Alexander Volkanovski.
And whether or not you’re a fight fan, there’s a lot to learn here.
Such is the brutal beauty of hand-to-hand combat:
It will show you the truth, whether you like it or not.
The truth is, the outcome of this fight felt inevitable from the moment it was booked, and the closer it got, the worse I felt about Volk’s chances.
For months, I listened to friends and fans comfort each other with reasons why Volk would win…
…He’s more experienced, he’s more proven, he’s the better overall fighter (all true — he probably won 8 of the 8.5 minutes they spent in the octagon)…
…But it only took a few exchanges, maybe 90 seconds of fight time, before I heard the bomb ticking.
MMA is a brutal sport, man:
It takes a decade to reach the top, and a split-second to be violently knocked off.
And no matter how great the athlete, they all fall, with so few exceptions we could round to zero.
It takes a strong stomach to be a fan, but a strong stomach is a useful quality to develop, and Saturday night reminded me of a lesson that is way too important to forget:
All progress starts with the truth.
We move forwards by seeing reality as it is, rather than as we wish it was.
It’s easy to say that Volk will be back, that Illia got lucky, that the MMA world will turn itself right-side-up and things will go back to the way we wish they were.
It’s also easy to say that a dying relationship can still work out, that our failing business idea will succeed if we just keep going, that things aren’t really as “bad” as they seem.
But the first step to finding a relationship that works is admitting the current relationship doesn’t.
The first step to fixing a failing business is admitting the current approach isn’t succeeding.
And the first step to making things better is accepting things as they are.
Faith can work miracles, but it demands honesty in exchange.
I know that’s a lot to take from an 8 minute cage fight, but that’s where my mind went 🙂
Congrats to the new champ.
- T
P.S. If all goes according to plan, we’ll open our new membership to a small group of BETA members sometime this week.
So stay tuned 🙂
In the meantime, have you seen this yet?