MMA-rianas: The Fighting Islands By Vicente “Ben” Salas II

We thought we’d share this article by Ben Salas via the Marianas Variety! Its a great read on MMA and the spirit of our fighting islands.

Enjoy!

MMA-rianas: The Fighting Islands By Vicente “Ben” Salas II
From the Marianas Variety

To fight or not to fight? That is a question’

FIGHT or flight. It is defined as “the instinctive physiological response to a threatening situation, which readies one to either resist forcibly or run away.”

This response is directly tied to adrenaline, the hormone which our bodies naturally produce, enabling us to either fight or flee at our maximum capability.

If you take a look at our history as islanders, you could make a fair assessment that we favor the former over the latter.

One might say it’s in our DNA.

In either case, the driving force is the instinct to survive and the emotional, psychological and physical reactions that accompany it.

Now, mixed martial arts or MMA, being a sanctioned combat sport, is completely voluntary. Not only is it voluntary, but it is regulated by a referee and rule sets in each match and thus does not represent ‘fight or flight’ as a matter of life or death the way actual warfare or a street mugging confrontation would.

However, as we’ve seen time and again—in instances where a more technically sound fighter is trouncing a lesser opponent, only for the latter to dig deep and pull off a win on heart and adrenaline alone—it happens very often in MMA.

Most especially when amateur undercard matches in Saipan’s Rites of Passage events and often times, due to a lack of technical experience, all a fighter has left is his heart to forge onward.

You see, just as it is voluntary for a fighter to make his/her choice to sign the dotted line on the contract and accept a fight, so too is it voluntary for them choose how badly they want win or simply give up in the heat of combat. If you get submitted, you get submitted.

If you get caught by a punch you don’t see coming and it knocks you out, you got knocked out and that’s that. But there is a certain point when you make the decision to buckle down and fight back that can actually lessen the likelihood of either of those scenarios taking place. Combined with adequate fight camp preparation, physical and mental conditioning and game planning, the CHOICE to FIGHT is the quintessential final piece to the puzzle that brings it all together.

We now live in era of MMA where we have fighters from the Marianas that wholly represent the embodiment of all those things.

Fighters like Frank “The Crank” Camacho, Baby Joe “The Juggernaut” Taimanglo, Shane “PikaBoo” Alvarez and Jon “Super Saiyan” Tuck to name a few, epitomize a sound combination of heart, physical and mental toughness, technical skill, cardio, strength conditioning and well roundedness.

They have come a long way and shall continue to go far because they have survived true battles of attrition in their previous fights that have brought them to this point in their careers. Their experiences have taught them that just as winning isn’t only about having heart, it isn’t only about being technically well prepared either. It truly is a balance of both.

Up and coming fighters from the Marianas can learn from this and seek to add more well rounded skill sets and more disciplined training methods to the natural inner fire that they already innately possess. As they progress in their daily training regimens, they will also find in time, that the amount of heart they began with is amplified exponentially through the rigors of the hard work they put in at the gym. It is in that moment that the mere option to choose fighting over fleeing evolves into a fully fleshed out decision—a will—a true desire to fight. It is then that they know, they themselves, have become full-fledged MMA fighters ready to take it to the next level.