Boxing Like He Won the Fight

 

I came back from the UK about two weeks ago and am only just getting back into the swing of things in terms of my exercise routine. It started like this – I was in reasonably good shape before I went. I had spent the month practicing a degree of intermittent fasting which I compounded with a bout of intense exercise (basic upper body calisthenics till failure or sprinting). I felt great. My resting heart rate reached all time lows and my insulin sensitivity seemed ok. Heart rate recovery seemed good too, so good that I worried my heart beat monitor of my phone had gone kaput.

So, I went to the UK feeling good. Then, I rediscovered dinning in great restaurants and regular drinking. I was, after all, in the land of fantastic single malts and sweets – specifically chewy things made from condensed milk. When I returned, it was back to another good week of corporate entertainment, which meant regular drinks and good food and places which served “interesting” beers. So, by the time I returned my first night of upper body work outs, I was actually sore for over a week and as I write this, I’m trying to shake of a minor gout attack, something which I’ve not had for quite a while.

This personal encounter with my declining physical fitness after a two-week break indicates one of the sad truths of life, namely the sad fact that life’s problems are more often than not brought on by our successes rather than our failures.

There are plenty of examples. One of the most dramatic came from the Fury-Usyk fight. The previously unbeaten and unbeatable Tyson Fury lost a split decision and actually had to take a standing eight count in the ninth round.

Nobody doubts that Tyson Fury like his idol, Mike Tyson, (Tyson Fury is named after Mike Tyson), is a force to be reckoned with. Like his idol in his first professional defeat, Mr. Fury proceeded to compound his defeat by announcing he had won but the judges were biased because his Ukrainian opponent was from a country at war (There was a claim that the referee had counted slowly in the defeat to Buster Douglas in 1990). Just as in the Douglas fight, whatever biases the judges may or may not have had could not obscure the fact that that the Usyk camp had their act together whilst the Fury Camp did not.

https://www.sportbible.com/boxing/boxing-news/tyson-fury-oleksandr-usyk-boxing-news-223456-20240519

 

 The most prominent critic of the fight was non other than Mr. Lennox Lewis, himself a former heavy weight champion, who criticized Tyson Fury’s tactics, saying “Fury was boxing like he won the fight,” and the said, “No boxer can judge and say they won the fight.” Mr. Lewis argued that boxers should “Every time a round was close, they should look at it like a loss.”

Simply put, Mr. Fury assumed he’d win and boxed liked he already won. Mr. Usyk by contrast came prepared and was disciplined enough to do what he needed to do.  

Successful people get lulled into believing that success is “God-Given” and they stop doing the things that made them successful in the first place. Successful people also tend to believe they wrote the rule book for success without fully understanding the context of their success.

If you go back to boxing. Mr. Fury’s idol, Mr. Tyson would later admit in his biography “Undisputed Truth” that the reason why he lost the 1990 fight to Buster Douglas was simple. Mr. Tyson partied the night before whilst Mr. Douglas trained exceedingly hard.

If you look at the “Greats” in any particular given field, you’ll find that its not that they were “undefeated.” In boxing, there’s Mohamad Ali, who is the idol of every professional fighter and known as the “Greatest.” If you look at things, Mohamad Ali didn’t have the “best” record as a fighter. That distinction goes to Ricky Marciano, the only heavy weight to retire “undefeated.”

So, why don’t we laud Mr. Marciano the way we laud Mr. Ali. The reason is simple – Mr. Ali had to face competition. He tasted defeat and he learnt from it. This of the trilogy of fights he had against Joe Frazier, a fighter who made him taste defeat. Both men gave their heart and soul into the fights they had.

Most of us have been fed a false narrative that success is about the absence of failure. We define a successful person as someone who has always gotten what they’ve wanted. I think of the myriad of Singapore government officials that get paraded around as being great because they have great academic results and perfect careers in the civil service.

The reality is that you cannot have real success without failure. If you look at the analogy of Mr. Ali and Mr. Federer in their respective sports, you’ll realise that real success comes from failure or defeat. Both men had their losses, dealt with it and came back stronger. These are the guys who inspire others. Ali lost to Frazier and then came back to beat him twice. Roger Federer set a record and inspired his two closest rivals to surpass him. One only has to think of how Rafael Nadal cried when Mr. Federer retired.

People who have tasted failure understand success is not “God-Given” and so they work to keep themselves there until they are no longer able to. People who assume its “God-Given” collapse once the they taste their first disappointment. It’s something HR departments need to keep in mind when looking at CV’s that fit perfectly.