Smiles Make Fights: Is Phil Davis' Newfound Joy Enough to Get Him to the Top?

Put aside the talk of wrestling. Yes, Phil Davis thinks his is the best. Forget about King Mo's punching power. Spoiler alert: Davis isn’t worried about it. 

The real key to Saturday’s bout between Davis and Muhammad "King Mo" Lawal at Bellator 154—with a light heavyweight title shot hanging in the balance—is joy.

If you know anything about Davis, you know happiness fuels the mien. Here’s a guy who’s probably going to be pretty unhappy whenever he’s not happy. Ever smiling, cracking wise and thinking deep, dissatisfaction is a 48-inch pipe wrench to Davis’ gears. It’s probably going to throw his whole personality off the track and into the muck.

That’s where Davis (15-3-1) was about a year ago. In January 2015, he looked flat in dropping a split decision to Ryan Bader at UFC on Fox 14. It was his second loss in three tries, and his hopes of fighting for a belt seemed dimmer than ever.

Apparently, a change of scenery was in order. His fight against Bader was the last on his UFC contract, and soon after, he became the highest-profile fighter to that point to move from the UFC to Bellator.

Now, after going all the way in the light heavyweight grand prix at Bellator 142 in September, Davis is a winner of two in a row. He has his groove back, he said, and it’s made a huge difference in his mindset and preparation. 

"

Early am sprints with Olympic hopeful joaodabarreira92 🏃🏾💨 🇧🇷🇧🇷 good luck bro https://t.co/AcFHQ5vKjh

— Phil Davis (@PhilMrWonderful) May 10, 2016"

“Sometimes, someone can just steal your joy,” Davis said in an exclusive interview with Bleacher Report. “They can take something you like and make it a job. … I love my job. I love to fight. But I don’t want it to feel like I’m going to work. Sometimes, it’s not what you do that needs to change, but how you do it.”

Connecting the dots, it seems the former national college wrestling champ has rediscovered his enthusiasm for MMA, and all the work that goes into reaching and staying at the elite level. But why, and how? 

“At some point, I went ‘ugh,’” he said. “I was fighting to get back to not fighting. I just lost a little bit of my joy. That’s how I’ll say it.”

Who’s behind this callous joy theft? How did it happen, and how did Davis get it back? 

“You’re not Oprah, you don’t have a talk show, and you don’t have enough tissues,” Davis said. “So I’ll spare you the details.”

At least the sense of humor is intact, if not the candor. Even without Davis’ insight, though, he appeared to have lost his smile right around the time his UFC career seemed to go south. Low pay? Unfavorable matchmaking? Too many burdens with too few rewards? Not enough respect? For now, anyway, Davis isn’t saying.

And that’s not to say the sum total of Davis’ problems can be speculated onto the UFC’s feet. The promotional switch is his most visible change of late, but it wasn’t his most visible problem. That was probably his striking, which has failed to evolve despite the fact that Davis, now 31, has been a pro since 2008. This also despite his main camp, Alliance MMA in San Diego, remaining static for many years. 

Although his top-notch wrestling and rangy-but-muscular frame provide a solid base on which to build a title run, largely because of an inert stand-up game, it hasn’t materialized.

At least so far. Barring something crazy, he’ll punch his ticket to his first pro MMA title fight if he can get past Lawal on Saturday. Perhaps simply breaking out from underneath the UFC pile and into a clearer field was enough to recapture that joy.

Davis is working hard for the opportunity. He’s not hanging his title hopes on the plot of City Slickers. And he sees holes in King Mo’s game, even if Lawal’s fists can cover up a multitude of tactical sins.

“He doesn’t make a lot of mistakes, but he doesn’t do a lot right,” Davis said of Lawal. “It means he doesn’t stay busy. Some people stay busy but do a lot of things wrong. He doesn’t do a lot of things wrong, but he doesn’t do much of anything.” 

Davis has been guilty of the same thing, particularly in striking exchanges, where he doesn’t string together combinations of spinning stuff.

But if getting his joy back means getting energy back, perhaps this is where he could gain an edge against a plodding wrestler-boxer in Lawal. Will it be enough to get him over the hump?

“There’s so much different,” he said. “I’m in a much different head space. … I’m going to win every position and run the score up.”