Exclusive - Jordan Burroughs on embracing defeats and trying to be the best wrestler in the world: 'I'm not done'

Standing on the sidelines of a wrestling mat in July as he watched his son's season cut short after a loss, Olympic champion Jordan Burroughs had a tingling sense of déjà vu.

Just weeks before, he was in the same position. The stage was Final X, where a spot at the 2023 Wrestling World Championships was at stake, and for the first time in more than a decade, six-time world champion Burroughs did not make the cut.

Standing at opposite of the sports trajectory – a son defeated at the start of his wrestling journey and a father defeated after a dominant streak at the top of the world including Olympic gold – the two athletes shared a common moment.

“It was a cool time for me because he gave me an opportunity to see who he is," Burroughs told Olympics.com, calling from his van after wrestling training while his eldest son Beacon and two daughters scrambled for seats in the back.

"I think he understands that this sport is not just about winning. Winning is fun and you feel good when you leave the arena that day, but we participate in wrestling not just for the medals, but for who we become in the process."

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Burroughs and Burroughs: A man-to-man talk

Jordan Burroughs is used to the crippling feeling of defeat, but it was a different feeling altogether watching his recently turned nine-year-old son grapple with the same emotions.

And all that under a level of public scrutiny that other novice wrestlers never experience.

“I am quite literally refined in the fire for many years. I have lost on big occasions. I've had difficulties. I've gone through adversity. I've had times where I've been embarrassed, humiliated, lost in front of a big crowd. But my son has never really felt that before," Burroughs said. "He's going through all these things for the first time, and it's unfairly placed upon him because he's my son. It's really the only reason why he has this level of distinction in comparison to his peers or why he feels this abundance of pressure or anxiety is just because of who his dad is.”

While 2023 was his son’s first year of wrestling competitively, Beacon managed to qualify for a national tournament and was confident about his chances despite facing kids who were up to two years older than him.

These expectations made the eventual loss even harder to process. As a devastated Beacon came off the mat towards his father, instead of giving him a lecture on the mistakes that cost him the match, at that moment Burroughs was resolved to be only a caring parent.

“He just needed me to be his dad and not his coach that day," the father-of-four recalled.

So he took Beacon out for ice cream and later in the evening, once the boy calmed down, they had a “man-to-man talk”.

“He was in a hard place. He was crying and he was upset, and he was feeling a little bit of the difficulty that is associated with losing when you have expectations for yourself. I think he fully expected to win," Burroughs said. "So I just promised him, 'Hey, if you listen to me and you can be patient and you can work hard, we can get a lot better at this sport'."

The value of showing emotions: 'Feel it and then fight it'

The kind of resilience his son showed later that July day is something Burroughs could not boast of when he was wrestling in his childhood.

“I cried every time. I cried every time I lost,” the London 2012 champion admitted, adding that with time wrestling helped him to develop a new perspective on defeat.

“It taught me to be a man and it taught me to walk with pride and to operate like a champion regardless," Burroughs said.

"I've got to treat myself like a champion. I've got to understand that there's dynamics to this sport and every dog has his day. Some days you're going to win. Some days you're going to lose. But it took me quite a while. All through middle school, high school, I still cried. Not until I got to college and I started to realise that this is more of a game than it was an identity that I stopped being so upset after losses."

While Burroughs has become better at controlling his emotions as he got older, there are still moments when he lets all the pain come out on the surface. This was the case when he cried after losing at Rio 2016 and when he was relegated to a bronze medal at the 2019 Wrestling World Championships.

These are the kinds of moments, Burroughs said, when showing your emotions is the healthiest thing an athlete can do.

“You want to feel it. The right thing is to feel it and then fight it," Burroughs said. "That's what makes you a man, when you can deal with the emotions, you can face them, not hide from them. You don't have to suppress them or push them down, you can face them wholeheartedly. You can dwell in that place and then you can emerge out of them. That's what makes you strong."

Getting stronger through struggle

Burroughs had to heed his own advice on 10 June when he lost in a best-of-three series at Final X against Chance Marsteller.

This outcome cost him a place on the USA team going to Belgrade 2023, where he had a chance to win a third consecutive world title and secure a quota for Paris 2024. While the loss in New Jersey, his home state, was a setback on Burroughs' journey to a second Olympic title, it did not dampen his confidence.

"I'm not done is what I tell myself. I'm not done. In order to be great at anything, you have to have thick skin. You have to have the ability to forget things quickly," he said. "I know that I'm a great wrestler regardless of how I perform. And I know that on any given day, I'm still capable of beating the best wrestler in the world. And that is something that I stand strongly behind and I believe truly.

"You want to win all the time, but you recognise that's not really possible. Very few people finish their careers undefeated in their sport. Some of the people that we consider the best athletes of all time - Serena Williams, Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps - they've all lost races...But I think that the wins outweigh the losses, and regardless of how you finish, you can't forget the beauty of the entire body of work that you've put together.”

Burroughs has spent the months after the Final X defeat dissecting his technique to the smallest details and making improvements.

Putting the disappointment of missing out on the World championships behind him, the champion wrestler said he is now fully focused on his next goal – and it is an even bigger one.

"The world championships are cool, but I want to be an Olympic gold medallist again," Burroughs said. "I want to win a gold medal. I want to win the gold. The only thing on my mind is winning gold medals, and I'm prepared for anything."

One of the first challenges that lay ahead of Burroughs was getting his weight class down. His freestyle class of 79kg is not on the Olympic programme, so he dropped to the 74kg, which meant eating less, exercising more, and spending less time with his family.

Burroughs was ready to make those sacrifices.

“It's going to feel boring and tedious and monotonous, but on the other side lies an opportunity to do something that very few men have ever gotten a chance to do and that's what has to push you. It's a lifelong goal and a career-long goal that's set before you, and I can't ever get weary if I'm doing the right thing," said Burroughs, who made a successful debut in the lower weight class at the Kunaev International in November. "Not thinking about how hard it is, more thinking about the beauty of it. Like, man, look what I get to do. I get to go out there and try to be the best wrestler in the world on the biggest stage in the world."

And what about the glittering stage that the home Olympic Games at LA 2028 promise to be? The 35-year-old is not ruling them out.

"LA will be fun,” Burroughs said with a secretive smile. "Anything is possible."

Jordan Burroughs: A golden reminder and a life lesson

Burroughs’ London 2012 gold medal sits on a shelf in the trophy case at his house, together with all his belts from the World championships.

The medal box is tattered from so many people asking to touch it, and the medal itself has seen some wear.

"The lanyard is extremely dirty but it's beautiful, man, because it tells a story and it tells of a time in my life where I was able to do something really hard," Burroughs mused. "Seeing that gives me a constant reminder that I can do it again and I'm capable of doing it again."

The wrestler's four children are the main culprits for the medal being in the state that it is in. They have taken it out of the case on multiple occasions and more than once dropped it on the floor. Not that Burroughs minds. He hopes that his wrestling journey can be a lesson that will serve them beyond the gym.

It is also for that reason that he takes his children to the gym and puts them through the hardest of drills.

"Their lives are easy. They got mom and dad who are in love with one another. They have a home filled with love and emotional stability. They've got a full fridge and a full closet full of clothes and shoes, and dad's sponsored. We go on vacations and they get to travel the world," said Burroughs who, in contrast, grew up in a working-class family in a tough neighbourhood. "I wanted them to wrestle because I wanted them to simulate difficulty and to build toughness in a life that otherwise would be easy.

"Wrestling made me who I am. It made me tough, it made me strong, it made me courageous, it made me brave. And that's what I want for them."