Do fighters feel no shame when they cleary given a bogus decision?

[Kevc]

With all the bad judging lately Ive been wondering this. Do they seriously felt they won the fight? Or do they know they lost but take it anyways? Dont they feel uncomfortable about it?

Like when Buakaw whipped Kraus at showtime and kraus puts up his hands like he actually won?

Machida vs Shogun

Souwer vs buakaw

the list goes on

what do you guys think?

[horc00]

Maybe some of them did feel a tad bit guilty, but the light ($$$) at the end of the tunnel outweighed that.

And as for Kraus, the fact that he raised his hand like that after being whipped by Buakaw shows that he feels absolutely no shame.

[EasternCruelty]

Rampage felt guilty when he beat Ninja. Offered him the win trophy, apologized and everything.

[tapiahome]

I just watched Buakaw-Kraus IV at showtime 2.

Disgusting but it was in Holland and Kraus knew he was going to get the nod regardless. You can tell by the way he acted as soon as the bell rang. If he survived he was going to get the nod. That's it.

I love the commentators' reaction though.

[Producer1]

I was told that during one of the Khmer boys' last trip to Australia he lost a decision and his Aussie opponent told the crowd he didn't win the fight...

Fighting might be a $#!tty game half of the time, but a lot of fighters are stand-up (in multiple senses) guys.

[Sanchoy]

Fighters now a days have no shame to their game..

But the only way you can tell is look into his eyes at the end of the fight. There is alot of indicators that give the loser(winner but loss) away.

-he is not smiling and more relief he won
-he is looking down
-he is shock himself
-he is not celebrating like a champion
-the crowd is booing him
-the announcers are upset
-he blames it on the judges saying that they made the call
-he has no shame


do you see the difference in attitude:

winner:


loser:

[thirteen]

Apparently drinking your own piss makes the taste of shame go away...

[Twistedbydesign]

Well what do you expect them to do? They certainly can't give the win back, but as many said in this thread; how they conduct themselves afterwards shows if they feel they were given a gift or not. Rampage vs Ninja, for example, was a clear indication of this.

[Sudoraba]

Sometimes the answer is even simpler and a fighter just left believing that they won whether or not they did. This happens all the time in Thailand, at the end of the fight both fighters will raise their arms. Now sometimes the decisions are razor thin other times not. But judging is an imperfect science that is controlled by biases and nonideal vantage points. As a fighter there are always a few things things that you are always told; end the round a strong as you can, and fight confidently these are things that can sometimes steal the round in your favor.

Especially in a close round these things can make as much of a difference as a clean hit. If you fight discouraged like you know that you lost then everyone can see that; and even if you land more technical scoring hits the hit to your confidence is what people will notice. And that's one of the reasons that traditional Muay Thai fights look the way they do with stoic fighters trading repeatedly in and out of the pocket. You rarely see them change their expression, because a grimace of pain will betray weakness, you never see them take a step backwards because always pressing forwards is a symbol of strength, and you see them both raise their arms at the end because even if they actually lost a fighter should never ever feel like they are a loser. The moment they do when they have to decide whether or not they even want to fight.

There is one point of view that is more biased than even the strongest nuthuggers or the most crooked judges; it's the viewpoint of the fighter. Fighting is something that takes your all and when the hardest hits lands on face or arms there is one thing that a true fighter is thinking of even in the most painful moments, and that thought is victory. No matter how many times you have to taste the canvas you have to believe that you can get up and that you're only one punch away from landing a knockout. Without that belief there wouldn't be fighters. And fighters, fighting on the world stage nearly naked to everyone watching, can at the same time appear like the strongest and most vulnerable men in the world. But they don't have that advantage they can't see in their mind all the camera angles that a punch lands on them, they don't fight with a tally in their heads of all the scoring blows. They fight and they fight on taking as many hits as they need to to land their own so that in the end regardless of the decision they know they exited the bell letting go of every thing they have.

So it's easy to make fun of a fighter for being delusional when they hold their arms high when they clearly lost. But you don't realize they they didn't watch the same fight that you did. They didn't see any slow motion replays from multiple angles with commentary. They fought with a single viewpoint that went straight to their opponent's throat and experienced something was over in a heartbeat but felt like time stopped all at once. So sometimes they come off thinking they actually won when they didn't; they leave the fight thinking of putting all their heart in those punches that landed instead of the ones that fightmetric counted against them. It happens. Fighters are human, something that people often forget despite the fact that they put their vulnerabilities on display every single time we see them.

[sweede]

Originally Posted by Sudoraba

Sometimes the answer is even simpler and a fighter just left believing that they won whether or not they did. This happens all the time in Thailand, at the end of the fight both fighters will raise their arms. Now sometimes the decisions are razor thin other times not. But judging is an imperfect science that is controlled by biases and nonideal vantage points. As a fighter there are always a few things things that you are always told; end the round a strong as you can, and fight confidently these are things that can sometimes steal the round in your favor.

Especially in a close round these things can make as much of a difference as a clean hit. If you fight discouraged like you know that you lost then everyone can see that; and even if you land more technical scoring hits the hit to your confidence is what people will notice. And that's one of the reasons that traditional Muay Thai fights look the way they do with stoic fighters trading repeatedly in and out of the pocket. You rarely see them change their expression, because a grimace of pain will betray weakness, you never see them take a step backwards because always pressing forwards is a symbol of strength, and you see them both raise their arms at the end because even if they actually lost a fighter should never ever feel like they are a loser. The moment they do when they have to decide whether or not they even want to fight.

There is one point of view that is more biased than even the strongest nuthuggers or the most crooked judges; it's the viewpoint of the fighter. Fighting is something that takes your all and when the hardest hits lands on face or arms there is one thing that a true fighter is thinking of even in the most painful moments, and that thought is victory. No matter how many times you have to taste the canvas you have to believe that you can get up and that you're only one punch away from landing a knockout. Without that belief there wouldn't be fighters. And fighters, fighting on the world stage nearly naked to everyone watching, can at the same time appear like the strongest and most vulnerable men in the world. But they don't have that advantage they can't see in their mind all the camera angles that a punch lands on them, they don't fight with a tally in their heads of all the scoring blows. They fight and they fight on taking as many hits as they need to to land their own so that in the end regardless of the decision they know they exited the bell letting go of every thing they have.

So it's easy to make fun of a fighter for being delusional when they hold their arms high when they clearly lost. But you don't realize they they didn't watch the same fight that you did. They didn't see any slow motion replays from multiple angles with commentary. They fought with a single viewpoint that went straight to their opponent's throat and experienced something was over in a heartbeat but felt like time stopped all at once. So sometimes they come off thinking they actually won when they didn't; they leave the fight thinking of putting all their heart in those punches that landed instead of the ones that fightmetric counted against them. It happens. Fighters are human, something that people often forget despite the fact that they put their vulnerabilities on display every single time we see them.

I partly agree with your description of the way it's done in Thailand, but disagree with you with the last part writing about fighters being delusional.

As I have been training all my life and had a lot of fights in my younger days, I know with experience that you know when you have lost a fight when the final bell is ringing.

As a fighter you recognize small details between the rounds and in fight. The crowds reaction, the mimic of the trainers from both fighters, the different way of speaking from you coach in roundbreak(if you are doing fine he is just pointing what the other guy is doing bad. If you are doing bad he is speaking fast and points out what you have to do more), etc. In the fight you can feel the physical difference if the other fighter has the better stamina or power of the day. I knew when I lost or won, when the fight was over. It's something that comes with experience and to raise your arms like Kraus or Andy, has got to do with their specific personality. They are the kind of winner types that gets very upset when losing and if winning a fight in convincingly way(a KO), they are very quickly to point out they are good sports men by lifting their opponent or other "loveable" actions, and in this way show respect to the other guy they just knocked out.

The actions done by these fighters after the results, are always polarized. From denial to extravaganza acting of sportsmanship.

So I don't really buy it, that they are not aware of who actually was the real Winner of the fight. They know it themself.