Why do fighters who severely lose their punch resistance not see it coming?

First off, what’s the basis for the question?

What makes you think they don’t know that they don’t take a punch as well as they used to? Is the suggestion that a fighter would pull out of a fight if he got knocked around in sparring? That he’d retire?

Fighters know they can get knocked out in any fight at any time. They might not believe it will happen to them this time in this fight, but they know it can happen. It takes courage to step into the ring … they might lose their punch resistance, but that doesn’t mean they lose their courage and would run and hide because now they know what they’ve always known — that they might get knocked out.

And how do we know that hadn’t happened before with any particular fighter, only for him to hold up well under fire in a real fight and thus think that’s what would happen this time?

 

Scarcely anybody spars this hard I reckon, and in boxing you never know you've been falling until you hit the ground.

 

His chin is how it's always been. Dubois hits like a truck.

He's always struggled with recovery.

 

Boxing is like a drug to those who succeed in it. Fame, money and absolute exhilaration. For all those reasons and that most of them aren't any good at anything else, it is hard to give up, even as you deteriorate.

 

Do you have some knowledge of how many times he got knocked down in sparring?

This isn’t complicated to understand. He got pole-axed in the first round and never recovered, resulting in him being less able to avoid heavy punches or stand up to them later.

In a sparring session, if a guy gets knocked down or even gets his bell rung, they don’t usually just continue. I’ve never seen nor heard of a sparring camp where a guy got knocked down repeatedly, round after round. It can happen in a fight, but it would be insane to have him get up and keep going to get knocked down again and again in a controlled situation like sparring. You’d call it off and maybe he’d be fine the next day and for several thereafter … maybe not even get knocked down again.

Do you think Joe Frazier getting knocked down repeatedly by George Foreman also happened in sparring? I think people would have spoken of it by now, as legendary as that fight was. If not, what makes this any different?

Also, are you aware that sparring uses larger gloves and headgears? That punches in a real fight land with more force? That guys aren’t often trying to press advantages and take each others’ heads off in sparring? I don’t think I’ve ever seen (in many years as a coach in gyms where I’ve witnessed literally thousands of rounds of sparring) anyone wobble someone in sparring and then throw hard to try to finish him or put him down — they usually back off and let the guy recover. If he doesn’t or if he gets wobbled again, it’s usually called off. That’s the difference between sparring and a fight.

I’ve asked you several questions in this reply to you and the previous one. It would be good to see you answer them to give us a gauge on just how much you know (or think you know) about how any of this works.