The power of the commentator

I watched the footage of my latest fight the same night the fight happened. The Tachi Palace gives you a DVD right after the event is over. I got to see and HEAR the entire bout. Now, I am of course biased, but I felt the fight up to that point was competitive and really could have gone either way up to the end. I watched the fight with commentating and I started to doubt it myself. Im seeing him not hit me, but the commentators are saying Im taking shots, they are saying Im not imposing my will, they are saying nonsense and its strange how it influenced even me. These commentators also made a big deal out of my opponent and I being really close friends and former training partners(I liked Dominique, but we weren't close friends and we certainly had never trained together).

After watching it a few times with commentating, I brought it to my stand up coach and we watched it with no sound. Completely different story. The room was filled with other fighters and watching it with no sound made the fight what it was, just the fight. It made me realize that it REALLY does influence your perception by what your hearing. Im going back and watching all my fights without sound now, to really pick them apart and not allow outside opinions to influence my thoughts. In fact, anytime I watch a fight that I question the outcome of, Im going to watch it without sound and see how it effects my judgement.