fighters scared before a fight

recently saw a few quotes from boxers describing their fear before a fight

ali when asked did he feel fear before a fight said "i wouldnt call it fear, i call it being scared to death"

and tyson said the same thing

in his documentary said he almost ran away before his 1st fight because he was so scared

also said how he would be absolutely shitting himslef before a fight and as he got closer to the ring he felt more and more invisible til once in it he didnt think anyone could touch him


any other vids or quotes u guys have seen on how fighters get scared before a fight?? or even any vids of guys before fights

ones that stand out but i cant find, roy jones partying before each fight and hearing of ali when facing frazier, shadowboxing to one of fraziers camp and telling him how hes gunna whoop frazier before the fight

or even snv chewing on barbed wire before a fight

 

this was more scared of tyson

not just in general being scared whenever fight

 

heres a good quote from cus D'amato

sums it up real good
One of boxing's foremost authorities on the subject of fear is

Cus D'Amato, the legendary trainer of Jose Torres and Floyd

Patterson. A diminutive, outspoken man who has worked with young

fighters for most of his 77 years, D'Amato often looks back on

his own experiences to put the subject of fear into context.

"I remember the first time I got involved in what I call a

waiting fight," D'Amato reminisces. "In the neighborhood in

which I lived, which was a pretty tough neighborhood, you got

involved in fights all the time. Whenever you got angry, you

fought or you lost respect. Under those conditions you didn't

think about being frightened. You replaced fear with anger. But

it's different when you have the experience of waiting, an

experience I had once. I lived in an Italian neighborhood, and a

few blocks away there was an Irish neighborhood. I never used to

have trouble with the Irish; I got along with everybody. But

then the neighborhoods had some trouble, and both sides

said, 'You bring a guy and we'll bring a guy, and they'll fight

it out. Instead of both gangs fighting, we'll have two guys

representing the neighborhoods.' I was 16," D'Amato

continues, "and the Italian guys chose me. I wasn't mad at the

Irish, I wasn't mad at anybody. But three days ahead of time I

knew I had to fight this big Irish guy at nine o'clock on

Saturday night. So comes the night of the fight, I didn't want

to fight because this guy never did anything to me, but I got no

choice. All the Italian guys and I go over to the street between

the neighborhoods, and wait under a big street light. We got

there, maybe five minutes to nine, with eighty or ninety guys,

and the Irish must have had a hundred but their fighter hadn't

shown yet. I sat down on the curb, and I was thinking to

myself. 'How the hell did I get into this mess?' To tell the

truth, I was scared. All my life, when I got mad I'd fought. I

was fighting grown men when I was fourteen, but now I'm

saying, 'Jesus Christ, what's the matter with me? I got to be

crazy to do this. The next time some guys try to get me to

fight, I'll fight them first; I got nothing against these Irish

fellows.'" D'Amato's eyes grow larger, his face more animated,

as his tale progresses. "Anyway, I'm sitting there, really

sweating. I reached up, felt the sweat on my forehead, and

figured it was blood, but it was only sweat. Nine o'clock comes

and the Irish guy isn't there. Quarter after nine, the Irish guy

isn't there. Nine-thirty, I'm still waiting, and all the time

the waiting is getting worse because this guy is gonna be there,

and I'm gonna have to fight him. Finally, at ten o'clock, one of

his buddies comes and says the Irish guy is scared. He ain't

showing. It was the happiest moment of my life."

Fighters are the most exposed athletes in the world. During a

fight, the crowd observes every twitch and movement. Still,

spectators rarely see fear in a quality fighter. "That," says

D'Amato, "is because the fighter has mastered his emotions to

the extent that he can conceal and control them." But whatever a

fighter says, the fear is there. It never goes away. He just

learns to live with it. "And the truth is," D'Amato

continues, "fear is an aspect to a fighter. It makes him move

faster, be quicker and more alert. Heroes and cowards feel

exactly the same fear. Heroes just react to it differently. On

the morning of a fight, a boxer wakes up and says, 'How can I

fight? I didn't sleep at all last night.' What he has to realize

is, the other guy didn't sleep either. Later, as the fighter

walks toward the ring, his feet want to walk in the opposite

direction. He's asking himself how he got into this mess. He

climbs the stairs into the ring, and it's like going to the

guillotine. Maybe he looks at the other fighter, and sees by the

way he's loosening up that his opponent is experienced, strong,

very confident. Then when the opponent takes off his robe, he's

got big bulging muscles. What the fighter has to realize,"

concludes D'Amato, "is that he's got exactly the same effect on

his opponent, only he doesn't know it. And when the bell rings,

instead of facing a monster built up by the imagination, he's

simply up against another fighter."

 

as in, he'd rather be training his ass off than there at that time

what a quote , thats great