Former UFC middleweight champion, and all-around awesome dude Rich Franklin, offered up some really good insights into what it takes to lose everything that defines you, in the space of just a few minutes:

For those of you who don’t know, and/or are not fans of fighting in general, the name “Rich Franklin” won’t really mean a whole lot. And that is unfortunate, given the kind of man that he is.

The man comes from a big family – he is one of seven children from his parents, who divorced when he was young. He studied mathematics in college – which, given that I did as well, means automatic respect from me right there. Then he went on to get a Master’s degree in education, then taught mathematics in high school, and eventually turned into a full-blown professional mixed martial artist.

He fought for, and eventually won, the UFC middleweight championship belt, and he made his bones as a superb, well-rounded, highly skilled mixed martial artist with a strong background in striking, complemented by excellent grappling and jiu jitsu. He literally broke his hand in one of his fights and was out for a year.

And then he came back, to face a man who, at the time, was considered dangerous but not legendary: Anderson “The Spider” Silva.

We know, now, just how great Anderson Silva was. But back then, Rich Franklin was considered the odds-on favourite.

Nobody told Anderson Silva. He simply grabbed Rich Franklin, put him into a classic muay thai clinch, and then unloaded with vicious knees to the body, followed by one massive knee to the face that smashed Rich’s nose so far out of shape that you could see the results in that video above, years later.

Rich Franklin had it all. And then, in the space of a few minutes in the Octagon, he lost everything that he once thought was his to own.

That kind of loss changes a man in profound and often terrible ways. A man who loses his sense of identity almost overnight, has to dig deep within himself to figure out what to do next.

In combat sports, a loss by TKO or, worse, full knockout, has a pretty devastating mental effect too. Chuck Liddell once talked with Toe Joe Rogan about this very subject, and stated that he used to use his nearly indestructible chin and his legendary toughness as a major defensive weapon in his fights. “The Iceman” simply knew that he was so tough that nobody could ever knock him out.

Until, eventually, people did knock him out. Repeatedly. And his brain basically began shutting down preemptively to stop further damage from accumulating, after years of wear and tear that left him a hollow shell of his former self.

If you want to see what that does to a fighter, just go watch his fight last year, at the age of 48, against his longtime rival and nemesis, Tito Ortiz. It is painfully bad – one of the worst fights ever recorded. “The Iceman” looked absolutely terrible in that fight, as if he was moving through thick treacle.

Brutal losses like that are inevitable. Life is very nasty, mean, and painful. The world gives you absolutely nothing for free. You have to claw and strive and fight for every single thing that you get in this life. Nothing good ever comes without effort and pain.

And sooner or later, when you are least prepared for it, events in your life will conspire to rip everything that you have away from you.

It is during that time that you will be tried, tested, and – all too often – found wanting.

Every one of us becomes a loser at one point or another in our lives. This is a particularly galling and difficult time for those who are accustomed only to victory, especially if those victories have made us complacent and a bit too confident in our positions. Pride – hubris – makes us think that we are invincible, that nothing can pose a real threat to us, and that we have the measure of the world around us.

As it is often said, “pride goeth before the fall” – and the length of that fall must, by definition, be commensurate with the level of overweening pride that we had in the first place.

There are two ways to handle a terrible loss like the one that Rich Franklin faced.

he first way is to act the way that Phil Heath, 7-time Mr. Olympia bodybuilding champion, did when he lost his title to Shawn Rhoden last year. Basically, Mr. Heath simply refused to accept that he was beaten, and continued to claim and argue for days afterwards that he was the better man and that the judges had more or less robbed him of his 8th, and record-equaling, title.

It goes without saying that this is far from a productive way to handle a loss. People who stay stuck in this mode of denial, never accept that they needed to be taught a lesson, and that the purpose of this lesson was to help them grow and change and become better.

The second way is to act the way that another mixed martial arts legend, Dominick Cruz, did when he actually lost the title for the first time in his life to Cody Garbrandt.

He did not shy away from his failures. He owned every single one of them, right then and there, on the day. He did not pretend that he was the better man. He was humble, forthright, and open under the glare of the media’s spotlight. He did not dodge, duck, or evade any criticism.

He stood there – quite literally – and took it like a man.

The examples provided by men like Rich Franklin and Dominick Cruz teach the rest of us what it means to be a loser. Every single one of us will be a loser at some point or another. Some of us are doomed to stay losers for years – even decades.

In those times, you have a choice.

You can give up, give in, stop fighting, and stay a loser.

Or you can get back up and keep fighting.

Look at what happened to Rich Franklin. Yeah, he lost his title, and then he got beaten by Anderson Silva for a second time, with the exact same tactics. He didn’t give up. He kept training. He kept fighting. He moved up to light heavyweight, and did well there. Then he moved back down to middleweight, and eventually retired.

His final record was 29-7-1.

That is an amazing record by MMA standards. And he is now considered a legend and ambassador of the sport.

Rich Franklin will not go down in memory as the greatest middleweight champion ever. That honour belongs to the man who beat him. But he will go down in history as a tough, talented, skilled, honourable man who showed great heart, grit, and work ethic, and inspired generations of younger fighters after him.

And that, surely, is the essence of being a good loser.