The Irish Dragon: An Autopsy.

The Irish Dragon: an Autopsy.

How Paul Felder embodied Memento Mori.

Paul Felder lost. He went five championship rounds with a former world champion, a legend in the sport aimed to make another run at the title, and he lost. Nevermind that five days prior Felder had no intentions of nor intimations of fighting, now, or quite possibly ever again. Let alone in a main event, for five five minute rounds, against a man rejoining a weight class, after battling the best in the sport, at an entire weight class above. To fight this man at his very best. At his best condition, best trained, with a full camp, aimed and ready for violence. A man who once held gold across his waist. A man most mortal men avoid like the horseman himself.

Five days prior Paul Felder had no intentions of fighting, and yet he did, and he lost, and it was violent and beautiful and he was glorious. Paul Felder lost and in doing so he honored his name, and he honored his father's name. He built for his legacy, and he touched God. The only way mortal men can. Through beautiful sacrifice. Paul Felder lost and he felt every part of it in his bones, and every man should be so blessed in this life to feel the same.

As I said, normal men don't do this. No, this is an action most normal men do not even begin to entertain. A madness most would call it. Foolish, impetuous behavior, meant only for the immature, the unstable, and the impulsive. No, most normal men would never even dream of stepping into that cage. They would never cross the threshold and stand beneath the lights, the heat and the fear falling over them. They never reach the cage. They never reach the ring. They live in a numb wanting for the answer to the question every man asks when his blood and his fear is up. Most men run. And they run for good reason. Sure for a big enough paycheck, or a few whiskeys deep, many a man would take a fight. But a very small minority will sign up for true violence.  Once you witness true violence up close you know it is nothing to run towards. True violence is not fun or cool or a Tarantino film (and I love a Tarantino film). It is terrifying and destructive, and somber to the soul. But, when trained specialists do it and do it well, it is breathtaking. It is beautiful. A ballet of violence that only a man and the right dance partner can create; and that is just what Paul Felder and his opponent did.

Paul Felder is not most men. In fact, Paul Felder is what the progenitor of pain himself, David Goggins, would call “Uncommon among the uncommon.” A man among men. So it should come as no surprise that when offered this fight, after having stepped away for almost a year, after giving half a thought to hanging it all up. Felder said, “Fuck it, let’s ride.”

I’ll say it again. 

Men don't do this. At least not anymore, and when they do it is increasingly rare. As I touched before to step foot in the cage you have already reached an apex, a category the normal do not fit. To then take a fight like this is madness and the best kind.  Gone are the days of Dempsey, and of Sullivan, of quite literally "anytime, anywhere," and with good reason. Outside of the exceptions, the "Cowboys." The fight game is a business but it is the business end that is to blame for the current state of boxing. The "Money Era" that the sport is just beginning to recover from. (Or maybe not.) The fight game is a business, a psyop, and a battle of wills. The fight itself can be won and lost long before the war. 

One need look no further than the brightest star the sport has had to offer, yes still, The Notorious one, Conor McGregor. You can understand both sides of that coin with a good look at his rise to glory. Six years ago, when his opponent for the title dropped out, he took on a completely different challenger (in stature and in style) on virtually no notice. Then turned around and defeated his original opponent 6 months later. With a single punch. Some would say he won that fight long before the punch was thrown. 

Sometimes you fight whoever's in front of you, and sometimes you wage a months-long siege to break a man's mind. 

But this is not about the feats of the Notorious one, more than enough has been said for those.  This is for the simple and superior greatness of another Irishman. An Irish-American son of Philadelphia, son of a working man, who honored his name and made his father proud. This is for an unparalleled attempt at immortality most never witness.

8 months ago The Irish Dragon was done. He went to war for 25 minutes with another man well versed in violence on a tear through the division. He did it in that man's homeland, on that man's turf, and he came down on the bad end of a razor-close decision. After the blood spilt, the time spent, loved ones lost, and yet no further along than he had hoped to be, Felder hung it up. He walked away; no longer knowing his path forward.

The impotent frustration of doing all that was in his power to reach the top, in all the right ways, had grown heavy on his soul. He had given everything to the sport and he had been crushed under the weight of discontent. He lost his love for the fight and for the violence and saw no true reason to begin again. One can only roll the boulder up the hill so many times before they start to question why. One can only give so much and one can only lose so much. And Felder had seen his fair share of loss. In the ring and outside. In 2017 he lost his father to pancreatic cancer. A grief he wasn't truly allowed. He had to put it down, to bury it, and carry forward in his life, for his family, and for his career. Something all men, myself included, must do from time to time.

We are forced to put aside our grief, our loss, and carry on. And that is exactly what Felder did and in doing so he was never able to properly say goodbye. To grieve the man who made him. He was made to put his head down and keep pressing forward. And he did and he worked and sacrificed and it wasn't until the past months off, with time away from the noise, was he able to reflect and understand his loss, understand what he had taken from him. 

"I was never able to truly morn him...He passed away right when I took off. So he didn’t get to see the main events. He didn’t get to see me as a commentator; the way I was."

“You push it down for so long, and you forget about it. This fight and this month, you know, coming back, I felt that I was getting a bit ungrateful. He didn’t get to see this."

Felder went on.

"There’s not much RDA can do to me. I don’t care. I’m going out for bigger things than just fighting. I gotta take the bull by the horns in this one and take advantage of what’s in front of me."

“Two red corners, two posters, this is the stuff that I’ll remember. Wins and losses I can live with. Just having the guts to do this kind of stuff. That’s what excites me.”

And that is precisely what he did. He took the bull by the horns, and he lived fearlessly in the present moment and embraced the clarity of purpose that comes with accepting your mortality. With accepting and embracing and loving the fate you are dealt. To be a complete embodiment of the stoic maxim Memento Mori. 

What the hell is that? To put it simply: one day you are going to die. You are going to die and you have to remember. It is the root of Stoic philosophy that its progenitors used to remind themselves daily that our time here is short and it is fleeting. To live our lives as best we can to their fullest potential and to never hold back. To quiet the mind of all it's empty anxiety and be reminded that it can all be gone in an instant. Because there is no more sobering a reminder of how meaningless worries can be than to come face to face with your mortality. Hold your breath for a minute, hold it for two, get into a fight, swerve that last second in traffic. You will never feel more alive and more disconnected from the superficial than when you are gasping for air. Sending an email suddenly seems just as fucking pointless as it is.

And yet of course we don't. Of course, we forget and of course, we are pulled down into the depths of the minutiae of our day-to-day. So sometimes we must have tangible reminders. A simple memory, a totem, or an extraordinary example can be the trigger to shake us out of our unimportant worries and of our insignificant routines. They can serve as a symbol of what we are on this earth to do and of what a life is meant to mean. You are not meant for this earth to check off lists. To answer emails. To look at a screen. You are meant to work hard, love hard, fight hard, and bleed for what matters. That is precisely the example that Paul Felder made. That is precisely the example that Paul Felder lead.

No, don't quit your job tomorrow for a frivolous reason. You may have responsibilities and those who rely on you. But what can you take from this example? What can you take from that reminder? To find the moments in your life when you have no excuse not to. Do not talk yourself out of hard choices. Do not reason your way away from fears. I know the state of the world today, but what better time than right now? Why live afraid? Why live at all if just in fear?

I was doing just that. Reasoning my way out of something difficult; something fear-inducing. My own physical contest: a tournament. I had entered one five months prior and that was canceled due to the state of the world. I had trained, made weight, and prepared myself only to be told the week of that it would not take place. So I let it go. My goal to compete this year was not meant to be, that's life, accept it, move on. Cut to early Nov and an email: another tournament, one state over,  gifted free entry. Immediately: "it's too short notice, too far away, the holidays, travel to another state?" Excuses. Rationalizations meant to keep comfort. Complacency. Routine.

 The very next day Paul Felder accepts to fight Rafael Dos Anjos on 5 days' notice. Now there are no excuses. Now there is no rationale. There is only the here and now and the sober truth, the ever-present knowing, that you and I are going to die. So do you choose to delve deeper into the ease and comfort of the known world and the charted life? Or do you say, fuck it let's go? Do you take life by the neck, knowing that when you look back it was in those moments that you were fully and irrevocably fucking alive?. Electricity in the veins and gunpowder in the nose. Teetering on the edges of psychosis and ecstasy.

 Paul Felder's risk was, and is, much higher than my own, and that is exactly the point. His example makes our daily concessions extraordinarily trivial by comparison. It leaves nowhere to hide for our better selves trapped in the far corners of our minds. It is in these examples we are forced to accept the mundane or embrace and walk the edges of our mortality. In any small way we can.

Paul Felder lost. And in doing so he cast a piece of himself into the ether that will live forever. In his example. In the hearts of those he loves. And to perpetually sit in the back of the mind of those who witnessed. What is memento mori? It is Paul Felder.

"...It feels right though...I am scared to death but I'm not dying of cancer, I don't have Covid, I have a job, I'm making tons of money, it would be stupid to sit at home and run on the treadmill? Why? Because... I just got offered a fricken main event! Take it."

Yes, take it.

Paul Felder lost. He attempted and he failed. Have you?