Something I have come to realise in my athletic career that is an important north star to keep in mind is that opportunities come to you when you deserve them the least. They increase on an exponential level in response to the opportunities you have gotten beforehand (granted that you made the most of them). Getting your first super-fight is hard but have a good performance and then the next one is easy. Have a few good performances, market yourself in a way that makes people take note and then you'll be able to teach seminars, do more private lessons, get invited to teach classes etc. etc. One opportunity can cascade into more opportunities, in which each opportunity can cascade into even more, ad-infinitum.

The catch here is that the opportunities come when it's easiest to keep working towards them, or in other words. You get rewarded long after you've done the hard work and sacrifice not during or directly after. The hardest time to train a combat sport consistently is either when you have just started (in which you're going to get no opportunities, recognition or anything of the like) or when you haven't seen the fruits of your labor for a long time. Any combat sports athlete whose trained at a high level for a long enough period of time will have experienced this. You're training your ass off, you're getting better than ever, but there's just nowhere to show off your skills. This can be disheartening and that's why it's so important to remember that the opportunities and fruits of your labor are going to be far far far upstream of where you are now.

The longer you can do the work without getting anything in return the greater the upside will be in your return

On the other hand although opportunities increase exponentially skill increases pretty linearly. (I know there are peaks and troughs but let's average it out ok), the best way to capitalize on opportunities is by having a high degree of skill, preferable a much higher degree of skill relative to the amount of opportunities you currently get.

If you're familiar with the elo rating system you can think of skill as your "true skill" and the opportunities you get (super fights, seminars, etc.) as the amount of elo you have. If your true skill is far higher than your elo, then when someone gives you an opportunity (a super fight) or you create one yourself (fly to America to compete in worlds) you're going to have a much higher chance of capitalizing on it. Since your skill is much higher than your perceived level.

This should be the main focus for athletes, just focus on getting better. Getting better is never going to hurt your career or the amount of opportunities you get, in fact it's going to significantly increase what you can do and make of the opportunities you get.

tldr:

1. Getting good is the best way to get more opportunities

2. Opportunities will present themselves far downstream of the hard-work. It's important to remember this and consistently get better.

3. Working hard while getting nothing in return will increase the upside when you eventually do get an opportunity.