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This article is the ninth in a series of daily releases counting down the top thirty fights of 2008. We will release a new article each day starting from #30 all the way up until the end of the month.
Top 30 Fights of 2008: #21
Kurt "Batman" Pellegrino vs. Alberto Crane
UFC Fight Night – Swick vs. Burkman - 1/23/08
The fight between Kurt Pellegrino and Alberto Crane at the beginning of 2008 was a brilliant lesson on upholding the integrity of your beliefs. Before fights, we often hear the participants speaking of how they plan to impose their will upon their opponents, and how their depth of heart can and will prevail under the most dire of circumstances.
While most of these claims are true to a certain extent, it is seldom that we are treated to a display of a fighter living this belief to the utmost integrity. Where right from the get-go obstacles arise and the road toward capturing one's goals is instantly revealed to be littered with hardship and opposing forces that could very well be impossible to overcome.
Upon the sounding of the beginning of the opening round, Pellegrino was met with a bone crushing shin kick to the mouth. In under ten seconds, he found himself lying on the canvas with a hole the size of a quarter opened on his bottom lip in which his teeth punctured through, made possible by the force the impact delivered by Crane's strike. For most people, a near-knockout coupled with a violent wound on their face would result in nothing more than a great loss of spirit. Pellegrino, however, chose to uphold what he had promised, and pressed on despite the early onslaught of misfortune.
A perfect metaphor for the integrity of Pellegrino's Bushido-like display would be the early life of Ghengis Khan. Genghis Khan was at one point the leader of the largest contiguous empire Earth has ever seen, being four times as large as Mesopotamia during it's rule under Alexander the Great, and twice as large as the ancient Roman Empire.
Ghengis Khan was born Temüijin to the Mongolian tribe Borjigin. He was of a noble lineage, and his father, Yesükhei, was the Khan of his tribe. At age nine, young Temüijin was delivered by his father to the neighboring Olkhunut tribe. The purpose of this temporary stay was to be turned into a man by the tribe that would supply his wife, and young girl named Börte.
Before leaving Temüijin with the new tribe, his father, Yesükhei, promised the would-be-conquerer that he would return in one year to retrieve him and his new wife. When asked by Temüijin if he meant it, Yesükhei replied, quite famously: "my word is iron."
While returning to the Borjigin tribe, Yesükhei was intercepted by enemy Tartars from the North, and poisoned to death. When Temüijin returned to inherit the role as chieftain in his tribe upon hearing of his father's murder, he was denied his right to nobility and subsequently overthrown by his father's former tribesman. Temüijin and his remaining family were left for dead on the harsh plains of Mongolia.
When watching the mutineers ride away on the plain with his former tribe, Temüijin swore he would kill the men who had betrayed him and his family, and one day unite the tribes of Mongolia. In doing so, he invoked the words of his deceased father, proclaiming "my word is iron" to his mother, Hoelun.
After many years of just barely surviving the unprecedented Mongolian winters, Temüijin banded together a large group of nomads and tribeless wanderers. Time passed, and one by one he absorbed the tribes of the plains into his own makeshift band of lost souls through fierce fighting and ingenious battle tactics.
By his mid twenties, Temüijin had united the tribes of the plains and began his conquest of the Asian empires, initially the Xia and Jin. He had held to his word, and proved the integrity of his beliefs.
With that history lesson, it is easy to relate the mentality of Genghis Khan to the modern fighters of today. Some crumble under pressure, others go back on their words. Pellegrino, like the Great Khan of the "sea of grass," proved the worth of his word. He displayed to the world that the honor of his promises meant something, and that the age old adages of living your principles was alive and well in the souls of today's warriors.
Pellegrino showed us all with perseverance, focus, and the ability to act under stress, that words can still be forged out of iron if one posses the will of heart to adhere to their principles.
Stay tuned for #20 of the MMATorch Top 30 Fights of 2008, which will be revealed with a full article tomorrow.
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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