In the world of sports, it is inevitable that competitors will form friendships with each other off the competitive field (for the most part). In sports like basketball, soccer, and fencing, athletes actually hang out together and have a fun time. However, once the athletes step into the field of play, their friendships are flipped upside down.
To have friends is perfectly okay. However when competing against people you have friendships with, you must learn to move past all the nice fluffy stuff and treat them like your worst enemy, fairly. I don’t mean rash slide tackles and technical fouls all over the place, but the part of you that wants the best for your friends has to be bypassed. Cristiano Ronaldo and Marcelo are team mates at Real Madrid and are considered tight-knit best friends. However they play for their own separate national teams. In one match, they almost got into a fight that had to be broken up. They, as professionals understand that when it time to compete, there is no time for friendships because it makes you weaker as a competitor. 
In MMA, boxing, or any martial arts, friends in the same field can rarely be made at all. Conor Mcgregor as everyone can see, treats his opponents like dirt in and out of the octagon. This is due to the nature of MMA. In the sport, one has to basically knock out their opponent to achieve an undisputed win. This means you have to look at them as someone who wants to hurt you badly and you want hurt just as bad or even worse. You almost have to hype yourself up to hate the other person so that when you step into the ring or fighting arena, you have no speck of hope for your opponent. Conor Mcgregor terrorizes his opponents on twitter, in meetings, and his own interviews. He is so bad that he got fined 125k for throwing water bottles at his opponents in a press conference. He later tweeted, ” I get fined more than these bums get paid”. Its fantastic.
Fencing is a totally different story. Since I was 10, I have been fencing against the same people that I still compete against. We built up friendships for nine years now. We go out together, party together, and even go to different countries together for tournaments. So what happens when a national tournament comes around and I find myself on the strip against someone I have countless positive memories with? Someone I treat as a brother. The important preparation is before. I have to ignore that they exist, block my friendship. Treat them as I would treat some random other fencer or even one that I dislike. If the referee makes a mistake in my favor, I will be happy, not ashamed. If their equipment malfunctions, I will not provide mine for them to borrow. I will yell be happy for every point that I get. I will try to get in their head, make them unconformable and treat them like my enemy. However, when all is set and done, I won’t shake hands with them like the rules say to, I will embrace them as our friendship returns mutually, win or lose.
The competitive field of play to athletes is a completely different world, physically and mentally. However to make your presence felt physically to your opponents, every athlete must control and master their mental game first.