This past weekend one of the biggest fights of all time took place. The best boxer of his generation, Floyd Mayweather, squared off with one of the best MMA fighters in the world, Conor McGregor.
I won’t clog up your time with any more of the details because you’ve already heard everything you needed to hear or you just don’t care anymore.
What I wanted to talk about is something that I believe has been massively overlooked in this whole spectacle.
What I want to discuss today is a mindset.
What I want to get into, is how people incorrectly view others who have achieved “success”.
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In the days leading up to the fight, we got to suss out a lot of new opinions. Whether it was the sports commentators who actually understand boxing or the wannabe boxing enthusiasts who all of a sudden have a stronger grasp on the sport than Freddy Roach. For some reason, when it came to this fight, everyone and their pet turtle had an opinion.
Beyond the pointless commentary regarding the skills and ability of each boxer, I also saw another topic of discussion getting tossed around.
With all the money that was on the line and how much each boxer was expected to get paid, everyone all of a sudden thought they were deserving of the same prize. And they tossed out comments like:
“I would get punched in the face by Mayweather for $100M”
“All Mcgregor has to do is stand there, get punched and he’ll make millions, I could do that”
“He’s going to be rich even if he loses”
Now don’t get me wrong, I agree with these comments and I can see why people make them. I too would get beat up and pummeled 30 minutes if it meant I could walk home with all that money.
But what I can’t get behind is how many of these comments degrade the effort that went into getting these two boxers to this stage. People act as if they just stumbled into this money and in the case of Mcgregor many think he didn’t even earn the right to be there.
This is where I start to get annoyed. Sports commentators and News Feed Warriors talk like these two didn’t have to do anything to get to this level. And they throw around the idea that if they could simply trade places, they would be glad to do so.
But guess what?
They would have never earned it. They wouldn’t have put in the minutes, the hours, the weeks, the months, the years, the decades of training to get to that level.
They would have skipped right over throwing up from intense workouts, the thousands of punches to the body, people laughing at you for following a stupid dream, the feeling of living on welfare, and all the moments of questioning if it was worth it.
They would be like Tom Hanks in Big getting to skip right from his teens into full adulthood. It might be fun for a bit, but ultimately it’s the experience of getting there that made it all worth it.
I’ll admit, the amount of money these guys get paid is a touch ludacris. But if anyone thinks they are truly more deserving of the money simply because they are okay with getting repeatedly punched in the face, they are quite sadly misinformed of what it takes to have earned that right.
As a society, we are so quick to only look at the finished product. To see millions of dollars flying around and feel like these two athletes didn’t work hard to get there. We negate all the things we didn’t see (even though we know they happened) and assume that it’s an easy road to get there.
When we make these types of comments and think these thoughts about those around us who have achieved success, we discredit one of the most valuable characteristics that keeps this world moving forward — hard work.
You don’t have to like Mcgregor or Mayweather, I can see why a lot of people don’t. It’s okay to think they are overpaid, no one needs that much money anyways. But what you cannot do is say that you could do what they do.
And if you think you can, show me.
-DT
