Shawne Merriman knows better than most what it means to play through pain.
The ex-NFL All-Pro, who spent eight seasons in the league between San Diego and Buffalo, rarely set foot on the field without some kind of nagging injury. From pulled and strained muscles all the way to broken bones, Merriman gutted his way through a lot of games playing at far less than 100 percent health so he understands why so many fighters take similar risks in MMA.
“I’ll tell you we always had this saying in football — are you hurt or are you injured?” Merriman told MMA Fighting. “Because from day one in training camp in football, you’ve got a wrist, you’ve got a knee, you’ve got a back, you’ve got a shoulder, you’ve got a hamstring, you’ve got a quad, a toe, for the whole entire season, something is hurting. Is it hurt or are you injured? Can you not play or can you not be 100 percent? Because nobody’s 100 percent.
“You take that to the fight business, it’s the same exact thing. I’ve done plenty of times in sparring where I’ve jumped in and sparred guys who are not 100 percent, and they’ll tell me right before we start sparring ‘hey, watch out for my shoulder or watch out for my knee.’ We’ll cater to it, but we know that they’re not 100 percent.”
Merriman, who retired from football in 2013 before launching his own MMA promotion called Lights Out MMA with its 29th card scheduled for Friday after recently inking a broadcast deal with ESPN for Latin America, understands why fighters often decide to fight regardless of injuries.
Unlike the NFL where players can miss several games and still come back to finish the season, most MMA fighters only get to compete two or three times per year and dropping out of a fight due to injury could deprive them of months of their career — and that also comes with a financial downside as well.
“If you’ve got a fight, or you’ve got to sit out for the next two to four months to then go take the next offer you can get, you’ve got to fight,” Merriman said. “The difference is with football and fighting, you’ve got to get ready — when training camp starts and that season starts, there’s no time off.
“So if you get hurt or you’re at 60 or 70 percent, you’ve got a game the following week unless there’s a bye week. There’s no time to recover so there’s no way you’re walking into that football game at 100 percent. Are you hurt or are you injured? That’s always going to be the question.”
In the NFL, teams are required to release injury reports throughout the week leading up to any game, including the nature of the problems a player might be dealing with. Obviously that doesn’t happen in combat sports and fighters often talk about hiding injuries from promoters and even athletic commissions to ensure they are still able to compete.
Merriman understands that mentality but even more so due to the volatile nature of the fight game where nothing is ever really guaranteed.
“There’s a huge advantage if a guy knows you’re injured in fighting,” Merriman said. “I don’t think they can ever disclose that information going into it. Some use it as an excuse, some not. The thing is a guy might be hurt or injured and just may not have had a full training camp where they couldn’t do full sparring sessions. They can do cardio, they could hit mitts, they could do ground work but they couldn’t really spar full speed because of that injuries. Those are valid.
“But some guys use it as an excuse that everybody is going to say ‘well, why did you go in there?’ It’s different because if you pull out of a fight, you may not get another opportunity for six months. That’s the difference. If you miss a game in football, you may end up missing a game or two but that third week, you’re playing. In fighting, you may not get that opportunity for six months. So I get guys not wanting to pull out if you can fight.”
The downside to that decision comes with the performance.
Merriman knows there were instances during his career where he played through injuries and he wasn’t anywhere near his best on the field of play. The results then suffer but the blame can only fall back on the athlete who decided to compete.
“I’ve done that where I wasn’t 100 percent and I played through injuries and I wasn’t even half of what I was,” Merriman said. “I just had that warrior mentality, I go out on the field and whatever I put on film is what everybody sees.
“No one pats you on the back and says ‘way to be tough, way to be a warrior, way to play through it!’ They’re going to say you played like shit.”
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