ABDULLAH DAVIS: It takes, takes more than just strength to be a fighter.

You have to have a certain level of heart to do this sport.

It's just you.

One person on the mat against another person on the mat, or one person in the ring against another person on the ring.

It's how you perform and you only.

I feel like I have the technique.

I, I feel like I'm one of the best jiu-jitsu fighters in the gym, and everybody says so.

♪ MUHAMMAD DAVIS: No one can break me physically.

I break myself mentally.

♪ All the fights that I've lost, going back and watching them, I don't think that the people were better than me.

I feel like I, if I wanted to, I could have beat them.

And that shows how important the mental aspect to fighting is.

♪ MUHAMMAD: All right, let's see if you can do it.

- Okay.

MUHAMMAD: We'll have a contest... - Now, if I pass out, you guys do know... you know.

MUHAMMAD: So I can have your stuff if you pass out, right?

- Yeah, of course.

Yeah, 'cause I won't need it.

(laughing) That's one other thing, the Davises are opportunists.

Man, I swear to... MUHAMMAD: ...we can skip the procedure, and just get the stuff.

- All right, ready?

I'll do one.

MUHAMMAD: One, dang.

Two.

ABDULLAH: Two!

Three.

Four.

Five.

MUHAMMAD: What?

ABDULLAH: Six.

Seven!

(laughing) MUHAMMAD: You have two guys in the ring and they're both technically at the same level, and they're both physically at the same level.

Technically, on paper, when you match these guys up, they should... it should be a draw.

So what separates them?

And that's who wants it more.

Who's willing to do more to win, who has that drive and that extra push, and who needs it more, you know?

♪ ABDULLAH: The reason we want to talk to our grandfather about this is that we haven't overcome big adversities.

And we haven't had any adversity to drive us to fight.

(thunder crackling) MUHAMMAD: It's, like, a thing with the Davis family.

The Davis men, they don't go... their lives haven't been easy.

And that's what made them strong-- mentally strong and physically strong.

And it's, like, given them the drive to push through, no matter what the circumstances are.

You know, my grandfather always says, Davises are survivors.

So we're the new generation, and we're not going... facing that same adversity and hardships.

We live like a really... we have a very cushy lifestyle.

I don't really know anyone that's been through as much as my grandpa has and still come out strong.

I mean, it's different when you're in Vietnam, and they're shooting at you and there's grenades, and your friends are dying.

It's life or death, and I think that that's what I need to ingrain in my mind, is that, you know, it's do or die, and that's what my grandpa brings to the table that's different.

Vietnam was a very sobering experience for me.

I got to see more death in a short space of time than most people will see in three lifetimes.

(rapid gunfire rattling in distance) For me, Vietnam was a place where you either go to mature as an individual, as a man, or you die.

There is no in between.

I had already had enough death in my own family to deal with and got through that struggle.

So when I got to Vietnam, I said, "Yeah, it's more death, "but it's not the same.

"Even though they're close to me, it's not family.

"So I can push myself away a little easier than I could if it was somebody that I knew, was part of my family."

That's how I survived.

(plane passing, bomb explodes) Some people get stronger, as hurtful and painful as it is, and some people get destroyed.

MUHAMMAD: Did you get stronger?

- Yep.

I had no choice.

I was not gonna let that place kill me.

♪ The fascinating part about being human is, there's a part of us that has a capacity to say, "It's not going to affect me now.

"I'm not gonna let that happen.

"It was an event that took place, "it was terrible, but I don't have to let it affect me adversely."

(explosions booming, rapid gunfire rattling) ABDULLAH: To go through that takes a lot of mental strength, a lot-- like, beyond comparison of what we've been through.

♪ When I get on the mats, I get...

I get-- to be honest, I get scared.

It's hard to talk about sometimes, but it's real.

So...

When I lose, I don't like it.

♪ And...

If I lose, I know it's that I beat myself.

I know it's all me, because I know you made yourself lose.

♪ MUHAMMAD: As a fighter, whatever circumstances you're going through when you get into that ring, it's just you and your opponent, and you have to be able to block that out, and just... Yeah, just block it out and be mentally strong and have a goal and go for it.

Whereas for me, when I fight, like, I lose the will to keep fighting.

And I lose the drive.

Just, I lose focus.

♪ There's no ground-shaking thing that's going to happen if you don't win, you know?

The world isn't going to come to an end tomorrow if you don't beat the guy.

But inside of you, in some place, there has to be a little spark that goes, "I did it again."

And wonders why you're still doing it, why you're still losing when you should be winning.

MAN 1 (on TV): Elias' striking is definitively what he is all about.

MAN 2 (on TV): If there's ever been a problem that Elias possesses, it's mental, and that... 'Cause one of this guy's problems was, he was on this show, a reality show.

Whoever won got to be in the UFC, right?

And he did really well, he knocked this guy out, but one of his biggest problem, they said, was that he wasn't mentally strong, and that he lost fights to people that he shouldn't have because he just underestimated himself and he didn't go out there and put up a show.

BILL: It's hard.

I grant you, it's hard, but the difference between those people who play the games like... None of this matters.

Whatever you do-- you could be the best writer in the world, you could be the best football player in the world.

The difference between those people and everybody else is, they try harder.

♪ (laughing) - That's why these guys tap.

It doesn't look like...

When you watch these guys, you really think, "It doesn't look like he's put that much pressure on him," right?

ABDULLAH: No, to tap out you go like this.

That means it's done.

- Okay.

- So watch, this is the pressure that comes to you.

- Yeah.

- Push your chest out from left to your right.

- Oh, I see.

ABDULLAH: You see that?

- You're putting it right on that joint.

ABDULLAH: Right on the joint.

- And you're putting all your whole body moving...

Your legs and your whole body stretches on that joint.

No wonder these guys are tapping out.

Otherwise they don't want a broken arm.

This is a completely different move.

Now I have your shoulder.

BILL: Yeah, but there's no way I'm gonna be able to move.

MUHAMMAD: If you roll... BILL: Have you seen... You ever see movies of, like, African elephants-- I mean, African animals.

Like, you'll see a zebra that got caught by a lion, and you can see, like, these huge strips of meat off its side, right?

And it's moving like that doesn't bother it, right?

Well, it's like the animals don't... And some of us can do the same thing.

You develop this ability to shut down that pain.

You shut down that pain enough so that you can function the rest of the way.

♪ MUHAMMAD: So the zebra and the athletes, Uriah Hall, he broke his toe.

He was put in, like, a life-or-death situation, and that was, like... that was what, like, drove him to keep winning.

And the zebra, he's about to, like, die.

And so, like...

So how does a fighter develop that drive without, like, being put in that situation?

BILL: You gotta want that fight more than you want the pain.

I know that sounds crazy when people say it, but it's the truth.

It's, like, I'm sure you guys have both done something where you were, like, really hurting, and you know you had to keep doing it anyway.

So you said, "Okay, I'm just gonna fight through this.

"I'm gonna push through whatever this thing that is that's bugging me," right?

(fighters and coaches talking in background) (audio off mic) Ah, you didn't quit?

Awesome!

Awesome!

I want you to be sensitive people who are sensitive not only to yourself, but the people around you.

But for you to do those things that you do, you have to be able to suppress that enough sometimes to do that hard thing that you have to do.

And when you get in the ring and hurt another individual, because that's what you do.

It's all about making the other person quit.

So if you can't do that, then you can't do your job.

But there's this big heart over here that doesn't want to hurt people, doesn't want to do that stuff, and you have to figure out how to make that good with what you do over here.

And sometimes you get caught, twists in between.

Or you let your emotions come before... before your sense about what it is you're trying to do.

And the idea of being who we are is somewhere down the road-- being able to separate the two enough so you can see clearly what your path needs to be to get where you want to go.

If you want to continue to be a martial artist, somewhere along the way, you have to be able to shut off that part long enough to get the job done.

You can always think about the person afterwards, but you can't be here in the sensitive part of you and do what you do.

It doesn't work.

My hope is that, as a Davis, as a family, every generation is going to be better than the one before, because you got something from the past generation that you can carry on throughout your life, whether it's a sense of self, whether it's a confidence in your ability to do things, you know, whether it's dealing with your own sensitivity in a way that makes sense, so that you get closer to the people around you.

I think that's...

I think that's the best that you can hope for.

♪ MUHAMMAD: One thing that he said that still sticks with me, is that because I had that big question about adversity, you know?

And he said that, "Adversity is adversity no matter what," you know?

For a little kid who dropped his ice cream cone, what he's feeling in that moment could be the same as someone who's just been through a car accident.

You know, it's all tailored to you.

So for me, that removes the doubt of, "Okay, I've been through some hard things, and maybe that's enough."

♪ (cheers and applause) ABDULLAH: I'm fighting for my family.

I'm fighting for my coaches.

Even if there is stress that's put on me, I can't let them down-- I'm fighting for them.

And I know they're watching, and I know they'll always be watching.

And also fighting for myself.

I know who I'm fighting for.

♪ (cheers and applause) ♪