Lex Fridman: belief

Transcript context

…That people all over the world participate in now. Literally, there isn’t a place on earth that we can’t get a fighter from now. You said in the UFC 299 post-fight press conference that sometimes fighters might complain that they get matched up, uneven odds, but that’s actually when legends are made. I think you gave Dustin Poirier as an example. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? What makes a legend, what makes greatness in a fight? So behind the scenes, fighters are a very paranoid bunch of people. They’re very paranoid, and there’s been this theme with fighters where they’re trying to get me beat, right? We don’t determine who wins and loses. If we did, we’d be the WWE, okay? You do. I’m the bells and whistles guy. I make sure that as many people that we can possibly let know that you’re fighting on Saturday know that you’re fighting on Saturday. Who you are, who you’re going against, and why people should give a shit. That’s what I do. Then the night you show up, I put on the best live event that I possibly can, and I put on the best television show that I possibly can. Once that door shuts, it’s all up to you. You determine whether you lose or not. And if you get into a position where you become so paranoid that you think that the powers that be here are against you, and you try to steer yourself away from certain fights… That’s one of the big things that happens in these other organizations. In these other organizations, the inmates run the asylum. So if they don’t want to fight bad enough, these other companies don’t push and they don’t do this and they don’t… We put on the best possible matchups that we can make. And in this business, you might be an older fighter, but if you’re still ranked in the top 10, there’s young guys coming for you. Killers. Young killers are coming out and they want your position. So you being the veteran that you are have to prepare yourself to go in. And everybody was saying, when we made that fight with Saint-Denis that Poirier was in big trouble, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. That’s awesome. That helps build the entire thing that Poirier, and then Poirier goes out and does what he did that night. That’s what makes fucking legends.…

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