In the fight world, especially the UFC, there are only so many fights a division can offer a fighter. For example, there are only 48 fighters that grace the UFC middleweight division. Also, there are only so many fight camps and gyms that possess high-talent training partners to ensure the highest degree of preparedness for a professional fighter. That is where problems begin to arise for certain fighters.
We have seen it time and time again. Teammates do not want to fight teammates and friends do not want to fight friends. At first glance, this is a completely normal thing. I know, from my experience as a normal human being, that I hate whenever I fight my brother or friend. But I am not a professional fighter, nor do I aspire to become a world champion in the world of mixed martial arts.
That is where the line for fighting friends is drawn. The UFC is a professional sports company that employs professional mixed martial artists.
We have seen a number of cases where fighters have publicly stated they would not fight teammates. For example, Josh Koscheck and Jon Fitch are teammates at American Kickboxing Academy. Obviously, they are good friends, but they both are in the upper echelon of the welterweight division. That leaves both of these men with very few options in terms of fights they can take, if they want to stay relevant.
This is wrong. You come to the UFC to fight the very best athletes there are to offer. Koscheck and Fitch have challenged for the UFC welterweight championship, unsuccessfully, and both are aspiring to get another shot at it.
Fitch and Koscheck need to go the route Carlos Condit and Georges St. Pierre would have taken had they actually fought for the title at UFC 137. They both are coached by Greg Jackson (St. Pierre spends more time at Tri Star with Firas Zahabi, but if you look in his corner during fights, Jackson is always there).
They both have trained with one another in the past. They looked at this fight as strictly business, and that is the way the fight game needs to be looked at. They respected one another, as well as the UFC by taking the fight. They knew what they were getting into when they signed their name on the contract. They knew that eventually they would fight a friend or a teammate.
Think of every other sport. Players have teammates in college that they play with and become friends with for four years. They then play those friends in athletic competition in the professional leagues. They put aside their friendship in the name of competition. Then those professionals can sign with or be traded to other teams, thus leaving behind those former teammates.
Again, they still put in 100 percent when they face them in competition. That’s how sports work.
Now with that example comes ill feelings that may arise if two fighters from the same camp are matched up. We saw it and still see it with Jon Jones and Rashad Evans. When Jones stepped in for Rashad to fight Mauricio Rua, he knew that path would lead to his training partner, Evans.
Following his victory over Rua, a rivalry and intense bitterness formed when Evans and Jones publicly stated they were no longer friends. It also resulted in Evans leaving Greg Jackson’s camp and becoming apart of the Blackzillian camp. What neither of them realized is that if you are gonna be the best, you need to beat the best.
I mean, if the Overeem brothers are willing to take a professional fight against each other, as they have stated, why can’t teammates who aren’t even blood related fight one another? Don’t they know that it will help improve their chances on a title shot, which in turn will make them more money in the future? Call me crazy, but isn’t the fight game about making money?
I know, with the small window of time a fighter has in his career, that the most money and fame you can garner, the better. Fighters need to take the mindset of Condit, St. Pierre and all other fighters who put friendships aside for 15-25 minutes, and do what they are paid to do, which is fight.
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