When I was on the youth wrestling team in sixth grade, I had to wrestle a girl once. There wasn’t one person in the entire gymnasium that wasn’t praying she’d pin me. Including my dad. And when I annihilated her and made her reconsider ever stepping on a wrestling mat again, I received no high-fives, no congratulatory butt smacks, no love. Why? Because I was supposed to beat her.
This young MMA fighter’s biggest mistake wasn’t failing to block the punch that made him eat the mat, but rather it was agreeing to fight a 62-year-old man in the first place. If he beat him, he’d be perceived as the asshole who beat up a Vietnam vet with a pacemaker. If he loses, well, he gets put on blast by keyboard warriors like me. Oh, and brain damage. He also gets brain damage.