A lot of sports fans have trouble figuring out why their favorite athletes can’t call it quits at the peak of their game. These fans say they want to remember their heros at their best, not as faded shells of their former selves, and watch with sorrow as their icons become mere mortals. Why does Chuck Liddell want to fight again?
There are a lot of reasons, many of which are financial. There’s no other job in the world a guy like Liddell could do that would pay him millions of dollars for an 8 week training camp and then a one-night performance. Fighting doesn’t just bring another paycheck from the UFC, it also opens the door to renewed sponsorship and endorsement opportunities. But it’s not just money. Guys like Chuck aren’t starving for cash, the real thing driving him is the rush of fighting.
Over at Sherdog, Dr. Matt Pitt has an article entitled “Becoming Superhuman.” It’s must-read material for those trying to understand the physical and emotional motivations to fight for a living. A sample:
There is of course a downside of the tremendous power unleashed by the SNS. Researchers describe the performance to stimulation relationship as “inverted U” shaped: Once optimization is achieved, further stimulation results in decreased performance. A little fear is exciting, a little more elicits a fortifying flood of neurochemicals and a little more renders an individual paralyzed and incapacitated. Some fighters rise to the occasion and some fighters choke at the moment of greatest pressure. Part of the mental art of fighting lies in consciously initiating the SNS and then preventing the fight or flight response from revving out of control. The fighters capable of that seem to have dynamite in their fists and ice in their veins…
When people wonder what keeps athletes in a sport where pain and injury are unavoidable, the answer may lie in the tremendous SNS stimulation it provides. Few human activities, and no other sport, can match the incredible stimulation an animal experiences by stepping into the ring with a known predator. Within seconds after the fight the SNS shuts down, adrenaline degrades and the fighting high is replaced by an emotional and physical crash. The only hope of recapturing that intense power, focus, thrill — of once again being superhuman — is to fight again.
The real reason that older, wealthy fighters continue fighting is very simple: nothing else in life can match the rush of a fight.