I’m ok with the saying “there’s no crying in baseball” because really there should not be crying in baseball ever. No one in baseball has to worry about or suffer from broken eye socket orbital bones, mango sized hemotomas on their face, or disgusting skin piercing bone breaks. As a matter of fact, I don’t even want to see a baseball player involuntarily tear up from getting dirt in his eyes after an awkward head first slide into second base. Man up, man-its only baseball.
If anyone ever tries to apply the ‘there’s no crying in’ rule to MMA I want them to be beaten about the head by Hector Lombard until they realize that yes in fact there IS crying in MMA. Anyone that goes through the rigors of months of training and dieting and weight cutting and the intense physical demands of actually getting into the cage and taking and or giving a beating deserves the chance to have a tearful release at the end of the day. It is a wonder we don’t see more of these guys welling up with emotion in interviews or during post fight celebrations or defeats. Watching a fighter well up with tears after a win or a loss is one of my favorite things ever about our sport. It humanizes the fighter who we tend to put on a pedestal and expect an almost machine like emotionless performance out of. A tearful post fight exchange let’s us see a little bit of ourselves inside of these skillful warriors.
Last night during the post fight interviews at UFC on FUEL TV 3, Ariel Helwani did an excellent job capturing and an emotional moment with Dustin Poirier after his loss to Chan-Sung Jung. Hats off to both Ariel and Dustin for a delivering a truly raw and heartfelt interview. Here it is:
