Their profession? And why did they do it? Any early fighters that hated the sport but had to do it for financial reasons? Michael Spinks disliked it, I know that...
Every single one of them is lying. In my opinion it is not possible to do what they do at the sharp end without loving it. I'm sure Willard truly worried about hutring opponents, I'm sure Robinson did it laterly mostly for the money. But on fight night the blood was pumping and the rush was fixed in place.
How did Willard proclaim he disliked the sport? Kind of weird how he was... thrust into that great white hope role when he didn't even like the sport to begin with.
To begin with he was apparently frightened. There is a story (possibly apocraphylic) is that he continually placed the referee between himself and his opponent so he wouldn't have to fight. Later, as he came to realise how good he was, he worried about hurting or even killing his opponents (he did kill a guy as you probably know), he was also frightened of being charged with an opponents manslaughter (including Dempsey's ).