Opinion: The Two Types of Defeat

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.* * * The new school year in Korea begins with the new calendar year. As such, I got to know my new batch of students this week. Introductory classes are always boring and a little dry, since they mostly exist to learn names, highlight important dates and go over expectations. However, the first day is when I explain the theme of my class, which is really what I try to make the theme of my life in general: to embrace failure. It’s a typical teacher truism, and I’m aware of how cheesy it can sound, but I genuinely believe it. We are, after all, human, and failure is inevitable. What matters is not avoiding failure but developing the ability to learn from it.UFC 207 on Friday provided two case studies in how to fail and how now to fail. Especially for the “New Year-New Me” resolution crowd, the ways in which former champions Dominick Cruz and Ronda Rousey dealt with their defeats are instructive. Before I get too deep in the weeds, props are due to the winners of those fights. I was among the many who, having watched and reviewed every minute of Cody Garbrandt’s Ultimate Fighting Championship career, assumed his path to victory was singular and improbable, that he needed a big knockout blow to walk home with the belt. Instead, he showcased a multi-faceted game plan and executed it near-perfectly. It may sound odd to say this given his in-cage shenanigans, but Garbrandt was much more mature than I gave him credit for. He was patient and technical, and he capitalized on his athletic advantages because of it. He got the better of most exchanges, dictated the range and made Cruz play into his game for the majority of the fight. It was a stunning, breakthrough performance for someone who I, admittedly, otherwise wrote off. As for Amanda Nunes, her performance wasn’t as much of a surprise as Garbrandt’s, but it was no less spectacular for it. “The Lioness” didn’t simply overwhelm Rousey with physicality and athleticism; she relegated the former champion to lower technical tier. There are no doubts about Nunes being the superior striker and overall fighter, and it’s not even close. Now that we are a few days removed from the fight, it’s easy to look at the way she demolished Rousey as some predetermined inevitability; and since only one of their combined 14 UFC fights leading up …

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