What were your thoughts about Wanderlei Silva’s stance in questioning Chael Sonnen on his remarks about the Nogueira brothers, dear reader?
The video was a flash fever on Facebook (check out minute 4 in the video below). Whether you agree or not with what Wand had to say, the point is that the former Pride FC champion felt the need to teach the outspoken wrestler a lesson. He played the part of a master speaking to a young disciple.
The point that emerges, as I see it, is that these days MMA is loaded with trainers, but masters, those ones who orient the fighter to adhere to strict discipline, are few and far between.
I don’t know much about Sonnen’s story, but it seems like he lacked someone to set boundaries for him in recent times. On the other hand, Wanderlei was always an extremely disciplined fighter, ever since his days at Chute Boxe academy in Curitiba.
We’ve seen several teams where fighters, besides being the single focus of the team, are their own managers. Rather than being guides, their coaches behave as though they were mere employees. Is that the sort of professionalism the sport needs? Would a Formula 1 racer be able to command the team?
There’s no doubt MMA is a spectacle, and the remarks made play into that. The fighters are true stars, but lacking in that dose of discipline that the martial arts provide us with through the person of a master, many of the stars quickly take on a luster of their own.
The Jiu-Jitsu experience shows us how the lack of a good master can cause us to fall face first, both in the ring and in life.