Imagine for a second, if you can, that you are an independent contractor at a major corporation.
You have your role. You signed your contract, and you know exactly what you'll be doing each and every day when you arrive at the office. You have a deadline, and it's a couple of days away, but everything is going swimmingly. You're all set to complete your tasks and fulfill your contract. Everything is awesome.
Only, a few days before your deadline, your boss comes up to you. He tells you that another guy on your team was involved in a car wreck, and he won't be able to work for a while. He asks you to switch your role, to slide over and complete his work. It'll help the team, he says.
But you aren't really prepared to take over his work. You're familiar with what he does, but it's not your area of expertise. And the real problem is that, if you mess things up, you know you'll be knocked down the ladder you've worked so hard to climb. You know this because you've seen it happen before, to co-workers who have volunteered simply because they believed the act of volunteering in a pinch would be enough to advance their careers.
They volunteered and weren't able to deliver what they promised, which affected their careers, sometimes dramatically. And seeing that, well, it makes you a little bit hesitant.
I understand that this analogy is not perfect. The decision Dustin Poirier made in Dublin on Wednesday—to not take a bout with another opponent after Joe Duffy withdrew from their Saturday main event—is not the same thing.
In fact, it is more fraught with peril.
The worst of mixed martial arts fandom seems to show up whenever a fighter refuses to accept a fight on short notice. It happened back in 2012 when Jon Jones declined to defend his championship against Chael Sonnen at UFC 151, which resulted in the cancellation of an event for the first time in UFC history.
Jones made what he thought was a good business decision—electing to look out for himself and his future—and his image with hardcore fans has yet to recover. Granted, much of that image was constructed by the immediate aftermath, when UFC President Dana White went on a tirade against Jones. Believe it or not, there are still fans who believe Jones is a coward for refusing to accept the Sonnen fight.
Poirier made the same decision. Duffy suffered a flash knockout during his final day of training at the Tristar Gym in Montreal last Saturday. The UFC sent him for a battery of tests, and when the results came in, it was discovered that he had a mild concussion. Knowing that, the UFC could not allow Duffy to fight and pulled him from the bout.
The UFC offered Poirier a fight against Norman Parke, a fighter from Northern Ireland who was already on the card. Poirier and his team decided that it would not be the best idea for him to face a new opponent with so little time to prepare, and so he turned it down. Other fighters offered to face Poirier, but he told MMAjunkie.com that he was only contacted about Parke. And regardless, he wasn't going to accept another opponent on short notice:
I didn’t know all (those fighters offered to step in), but I’ll fight all of those guys – no problem; but let’s set it on paper. This is a business. I’m a professional athlete. This isn’t, ‘poke somebody and start a street fight.’ I was contracted to fight a guy who I prepared for, and it didn’t happen. Now we’re not just going to scramble and pick a guy and fight.
They said it was up to me, and I talked to my coaches and we made a business decision, really. This isn’t a Toughman competition; you don’t just fight everybody because they want to fight. When I step in there, I’m going to be prepared, and I’m going to fight my ass off and be willing to fight ’til the death. But I’ll be ready for the person I’m fighting.
Here's the truth that a lot of fans have a difficult time accepting: This is a business. We have been led to believe that fighters who accept bouts on short notice are somehow tougher than those who do not, because it is in the best interests of the promotion to paint things this way. But the reality is that all fighters are tough; it's just that some of them take a more measured approach.
They consider the business aspects.
Saving the UFC's bacon and rescuing a show on late notice may buy you a few brownie points right now, but in the long term? A loss is a loss. Consider the case of Rick Story, who was scheduled to face Nate Marquardt on June 26, 2011. On the day of the weigh-ins, Marquardt was pulled from the fight, and Story ended up facing the unheralded Charlie Brenneman. Story lost the fight, and his career has never really regained the momentum that he had leading into that night.
Fans want fighters to "step up" for them, but what happens when they string together losses and end up being cut from the UFC? Will the fans then "step up" for the fighters and help support them when they fade from public view?
I think you know the answer.
I am an advocate for fighters being selfish. This is a blood industry where the effects of constant strikes to the head are a real concern. A fighter has a limited amount of those strikes he can take before his body begins turning on him, before his memories begin to get hazy and before it is easier to knock him out. If Poirier felt like he didn't want to risk taking those shots—even against an opponent he would be expected to handily beat—then that's his prerogative. He's the one walking in the Octagon and putting his health at risk.
Sure, it's disappointing that this Dublin card lost its most intriguing and important fight. That's never fun. But those of us on the outside aren't the ones who can make the decisions for the men and women who walk in the cage, because we are not the ones with anything at risk.
And instead of trashing someone when he does elect to look after his career first and foremost, we should perhaps be a little more patient and understanding and imagine what we'd do if put in the same position.
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