has ever a fighter ever faked being unconfident?

Maybe Blaydes/Lewis? Lewis was saying his usual stuff during the buildup and didn't really convince anyone that he was gonna beat Blaydes unless it's a lucky KO. This could've got to Blaydes's head during the fight.
Blaydes was messing Lewis up on the feet, got way too confident and went for a very telegraphed takedown with no setup while Lewis was clearly loading up the uppercut.
This might be due more to Blaydes having A LOT of bad fight IQ moments in most of his bouts.

Stipe/Ngannou(1st fight). Stipe was the underdog and didn't talk much during the buildup, many believed Ngannou(himself included) would steamroll the champ with ease.
Quite the opposite happened and this was a learning lesson for Ngannou. That's just normal Stipe though, he's always been pretty quiet when his opponent is getting hyped up like crazy.

Ferguson/Gaethje. Justin is very accepting of the possibility of losing and wasn't used to short camps. He praised Tony waaay more in the buildup than himself from what I remember.
Justin got to the fight, stuck to a solid plan, controlled the pace and battered Ferguson for 5 rounds.
Tony was super confident leading up to this, way more than Justin and what proves this is him compromising himself with the double weight-cut.
Maybe not intentional, but Justin did not seem too confident pre-fight from what I remember and that might have gone to Tony's head.

Poirier/McGregor 2 would be a great example, but I think Dustin naturally displayed being unconfident and nervous during the buildup.
So this wouldn't be considered intentional, that being said it did give Conor the impression that Dustin was gonna crumble in "60 seconds" and that fucked him mentally when Dustin showed resistance in the cage.

Sorry if I don't have more or more clear answers, it's pretty difficult to find any.
Interesting question though.
 
gsp pretended he was scared... homie

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Bang Bang - R-fish Down said:
I want to say Till Vs Masvidal/Wonderboy.
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I never paid attention to the leads up of those. All I know is Till splitting a win/loss between those fights. What happened?
sadowolf said:
It's actually a pretty interesting question. I can think of examples where fighters went into the fight very respectful and humble, but showed more forward confidence in the fight, but not any where they looked flat-out unconfident and hit a 180 come fight time.

I think part of that might just be because fighters are in actuality a pretty damn sensitive bunch and most care more than they let on about how they come off. In an environment where being confident is such a boon and having borderline delusional self-confidence is almost a necessity to be great, it's hard to come across someone who is willing to portray the exact opposite of that, because that display of confidence ends up being sort of necessary. That's why when you normally see someone step into the cage looking like they've already lost, they pretty much already lost haha. My prime example of this is always Chris Cariaso; the man looked like he was on the green mile when he made the walk out to fight DJ haha.
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Good shout out with Chris vs DJ. Great example of mentality #1.

I can think of times when someone was confident and then it went to shit. Sticking to the Anderson topic, Sonnen 2 comes to mind. At the beginning of the 2nd round Chael had a look like "ok this is mine" and then one spinning back fist later you saw that look completely evaporate from his face.

Maybe you're right though, that fighters wear their heart on their sleeve too much so they suck at putting up fronts in general. Plenty of fighters put on FAKE confidencethough... I think there could be tactical value in displaying FAKE unconfidence in order to mess with your opponent. If he thinks he's heavily favored/has you beat already before the fight starts... then that all goes to shit... I can imagine his confidence evaporating similar to how it does in the face of a failed spinning back fist.
 
Question said:
Maybe Blaydes/Lewis? Lewis was saying his usual stuff during the buildup and didn't really convince anyone that he was gonna beat Blaydes unless it's a lucky KO. This could've got to Blaydes's head during the fight.
Blaydes was messing Lewis up on the feet, got way too confident and went for a very telegraphed takedown with no setup while Lewis was clearly loading up the uppercut.
This might be due more to Blaydes having A LOT of bad fight IQ moments in most of his bouts.

Stipe/Ngannou(1st fight). Stipe was the underdog and didn't talk much during the buildup, many believed Ngannou(himself included) would steamroll the champ with ease.
Quite the opposite happened and this was a learning lesson for Ngannou. That's just normal Stipe though, he's always been pretty quiet when his opponent is getting hyped up like crazy.

Ferguson/Gaethje. Justin is very accepting of the possibility of losing and wasn't used to short camps. He praised Tony waaay more in the buildup than himself from what I remember.
Justin got to the fight, stuck to a solid plan, controlled the pace and battered Ferguson for 5 rounds.
Tony was super confident leading up to this, way more than Justin and what proves this is him compromising himself with the double weight-cut.
Maybe not intentional, but Justin did not seem too confident pre-fight from what I remember and that might have gone to Tony's head.

Poirier/McGregor 2 would be a great example, but I think Dustin naturally displayed being unconfident and nervous during the buildup.
So this wouldn't be considered intentional, that being said it did give Conor the impression that Dustin was gonna crumble in "60 seconds" and that fucked him mentally when Dustin showed resistance in the cage.

Sorry if I don't have more or more clear answers, it's pretty difficult to find any.
Interesting question though.
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Those are all pretty decent examples. None planned/intentional likely, unless Derrick did that intentionally which would be great. I wish someone did it full-on 180 just to test what would happen. The most subservient "I'm gonna try to put on a show win or lose, because it is an honor just to be in the cage with him" talk in the lead up and then when the fight happens a very aggressive, smirk "you're not on my level" demeanor.

I think your Tony/Justin example is valuable to show how it COULD impact the betting favorite. Tony did have a silly amount of confidence coming into it, perhaps partially due to Justin's lack of displayed confidence and partially due to the streak I'm guessing. Imagine if Justin went from that demeanor pre-fight and then was not just technically outclassing Tony (like he did) but also dismissive of him verbally at the same time/telling him outright that he tricked him into being overconfident while picking him apart.

Like I said, I hope a fighter tries it one day.
 
Kinda reminds me of when Stephan Bonnar was going to fight Anderson Silva. The entire promo suggested that Bonnar had no chance lol.

He did end up getting destroyed, but had he won I think he would have been the perfect example.
 
Dustin before the second fight with Conor looked like he did not want to be there. Just to KTFO him out, it was great to watch.
 
JustOnce said:
Vitor I don't think so, Griffin and Okami are both quite types, so I'm not sure. I don't think anyone pointed it out back then, I'm not sure it is what you think it is, but we'd never know.
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A lot of the stuff he posts is silly but I remember Chael actually had a decent psychological breakdown after the Vitor/Anderson face-off about how it was indicative of Vitor folding. At least I think it was Chael... sorry, don't have a link and it has been years since I've seen it.
 
Dionysian said:
A lot of the stuff he posts is silly but I remember Chael actually had a decent psychological breakdown after the Vitor/Anderson face-off about how it was indicative of Vitor folding. At least I think it was Chael... sorry, don't have a link and it has been years since I've seen it.
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It's okay, Chael will say his mom is his dad to get views online, I don't take anything he says seriously really.
 
Not that often really. First to come to mind was John Koloski from TUF6. He seemed pretty damn anxious but won with KO. Don't know if that was intentional

I sort of feel like the world slept on Glover vs Jan. Even Jan. Not that Glover acted timid or uncomfident but he was underestimated
 
Maybe it's happened, but I doubt it. To be a fighter, especially at the highest level, you have to have a lot of confidence in yourself, and it seems very counter-intuitive that a fighter will fake unconfidence while still remaining truly confident.

To put it more simply, if I truly believe I'm the baddest mother-f***er in the world, why would I fake that?
 
After beating Orlando Weit (with brutal elbows) in UFC 2, Remco Pardoel said he thought he would lose the fight in his interview...despite having a 90-pound weight advantage over a guy with zero grappling skills. That always struck me as odd. Granted, Weit seemed like a pretty striker for an early UFC event, but all Remco had to do was get a much smaller guy on the ground.
 
Dionysian said:
Yeah. Long before all the tried and true bullshit justifications of "he doesn't move the needle" and "does it make sense in terms of rankings" and paychecks and everything other glorified form of ducking talking point we have to endure nowadays... that fight was ahead of its time. Anderson's team discredited Weidman for months on end in efforts to ensure he didn't get a title shot, despite the division being a ghost town and an undefeated Chris coming off a flawless finish against a top 5 guy in his last fight.
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It was smart for them to do that though. Cos even if he earns it,it makes it harder for him to get there.
 
Question said:
Stipe/Ngannou(1st fight). Stipe was the underdog and didn't talk much during the buildup, many believed Ngannou(himself included) would steamroll the champ with ease.
Quite the opposite happened and this was a learning lesson for Ngannou. That's just normal Stipe though, he's always been pretty quiet when his opponent is getting hyped up like crazy.
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I suppose you can call Stipe's deadpan sarcasm at the press conference "agreeing" that Francis was going to beat him as faking being unconfident, at least technically. But it was a joke and not a Jedi mindtrick.
 
g*r*b said:
I suppose you can call Stipe's deadpan sarcasm at the press conference "agreeing" that Francis was going to beat him as faking being unconfident, at least technically. But it was a joke and not a Jedi mindtrick.
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I think Stipe knew that it was in his best interest to not seriously challenge Francis's displays of euphoric arrogance.

That, and Stipe's not really much of a talker to begin with(to his credit).
 
I remember amir Sadollah and rich Franklin always underselling their abilities
 
Dionysian said:
I never paid attention to the leads up of those. All I know is Till splitting a win/loss between those fights. What happened?

Good shout out with Chris vs DJ. Great example of mentality #1.

I can think of times when someone was confident and then it went to shit. Sticking to the Anderson topic, Sonnen 2 comes to mind. At the beginning of the 2nd round Chael had a look like "ok this is mine" and then one spinning back fist later you saw that look completely evaporate from his face.

Maybe you're right though, that fighters wear their heart on their sleeve too much so they suck at putting up fronts in general. Plenty of fighters put on FAKE confidencethough... I think there could be tactical value in displaying FAKE unconfidence in order to mess with your opponent. If he thinks he's heavily favored/has you beat already before the fight starts... then that all goes to shit... I can imagine his confidence evaporating similar to how it does in the face of a failed spinning back fist.
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Oh I totally agree, and Chael is a prime example of confidence suddenly leaving. We've all seen that perfectly-timed pic of him on his ass right after he whiffed that backfist, looking up at Silva in horror before the knee came haha.

I think fake confidence is probably very common in the sport. On the topic of Weidman, I'm a big fan of the guy and not to say he isn't confident because he definitely is, but I frequently get the feeling that he's not quite as confident as he lets on sometimes, and I think the same goes for a lot of fighters. That uber-confident vibe is so necessary at times that they feel like they have to put it on, whether it's to sell fights, get motivated, or just to keep them going and/or fight off nerves. Fake un-confidence definitely makes sense as a tactic to throw your opponent off, it's essentially sandbagging them. I just think we don't really see it because a lot of fighters see too much value in exuding confidence, and acting un-confident is not only probably not the best way to psych yourself up for a fight, but also just considered a bad look by those in and around the sport, so it's probably not worth the risk just for a potential fake-out. That's what I think anyway haha
 
sadowolf said:
Oh I totally agree, and Chael is a prime example of confidence suddenly leaving. We've all seen that perfectly-timed pic of him on his ass right after he whiffed that backfist, looking up at Silva in horror before the knee came haha.

I think fake confidence is probably very common in the sport. On the topic of Weidman, I'm a big fan of the guy and not to say he isn't confident because he definitely is, but I frequently get the feeling that he's not quite as confident as he lets on sometimes, and I think the same goes for a lot of fighters. That uber-confident vibe is so necessary at times that they feel like they have to put it on, whether it's to sell fights, get motivated, or just to keep them going and/or fight off nerves. Fake un-confidence definitely makes sense as a tactic to throw your opponent off, it's essentially sandbagging them. I just think we don't really see it because a lot of fighters see too much value in exuding confidence, and acting un-confident is not only probably not the best way to psych yourself up for a fight, but also just considered a bad look by those in and around the sport, so it's probably not worth the risk just for a potential fake-out. That's what I think anyway haha
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Good take.

I think that is precisely why only a SUPER confident fighter would have the psychological flexibility available to FAKE being super unconfident. To him it is all about tactics to steamroll his opponent/the optics of other people are irrelevant to him. Well, except for psyching out his actual opponent, which is obviously important to him ha.

Interestingly, he'd also be aware of the optics AFTER the fight, once everyone realizes they were taken for a ride. That'd be something to revel in as well.
G10 said:
Maybe it's happened, but I doubt it. To be a fighter, especially at the highest level, you have to have a lot of confidence in yourself, and it seems very counter-intuitive that a fighter will fake unconfidence while still remaining truly confident.

To put it more simply, if I truly believe I'm the baddest mother-f***er in the world, why would I fake that?
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Same reason you train before a fight... to maximize your chances to destroy the other guy. See above. I actually think only a legitimately super confident person would be able to pull off the tactical act of faking super unconfidence.
 
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