“It’s not that he doesn’t get tired,” Cormier said. “It’s that he’s built himself to the point where, when he’s exhausted and fatigued, he knows you’re a lot further along that path than he is. He understands that, so he’s willing to go there, because he knows you’re going to break first. And it really is mental. It’s not physical.”
The thing about that sort of toughness, however, is that the people who possess it often never let you see it. That’s part of the skill to it, in fact. In Velasquez’s rematch with Junior dos Santos, Cormier said, he appeared to be dominating with ease. What people didn’t realize is the extent to which he was being tested even while seemingly running away with the fight down the stretch.
“He told me that between the third and fourth round, walking back to his corner, he thought, ‘Well, I’m going to pass out.’ He literally thought he was going to faint right there, he was so exhausted,” Cormier said. “Then he went and sat on the stool and a minute later he got up and fought at the same exact pace. Nothing changed. That’s mental toughness.”
"Your mind is not your friend, Mike… you have to fight with your mind, control it, put it in its place. you need to control your emotions.
Fatigue in the ring is 90% psychological. It’s just the excuse of a man who wants to quit.
The night before a fight, you won’t sleep. Don’t worry, the other guy didn’t either. You’ll go to the weigh-in, he’ll look much bigger than you and calmer, like ice, but he’s burning up with fear inside. Your imagination is going to credit him with abilities he doesn't have. Remember, motion releives tension. The moment the bell rings, and you come in contact with each other, suddenly your opponent seems like everybody else, because now your imagination has dissipated. The fight itself is the only reality that matters. You have to learn to impose your will and take control over that reality"
Reminds me of the great(FICTIONAL)runner, Quentin Cassidy:
Cassidy sought no euphoric interludes. They came, when they did, quite naturally and he was content to enjoy them privately. He ran not for crypto-religious reasons, but to win races, to cover ground fast. Not only to be better than his fellows, but better than himself. To be faster by a tenth of a second, by an inch, by two feet or two yards than he had been the week or year before. He sought to conquer the physical limitations placed upon him by a three-dimensional world (and if Time is the fourth dimension, that too was his province). If he could conquer the weakness, the cowardice in himself, he would not worry about the rest; it would come. Training was a rite of purification; from it came speed, strength. Racing was a rite of death; from it came knowledge. Such rites demand, if they are to be meaningful at all, a certain amount of time spent precisely on the Red Line, where you can lean over the manicured putting green at the edge of the precipice and see exactly nothing.
"Cassidy early on understood that a true runner ran even when he didn't feel like it, and raced when he was supposed to, without excuses and with nothing held back. He ran to win, would die in the process if necessary, and was unimpressed by those who disavowed such a base motivation. You are not allowed to renounce that you have never possessed, he thought."
