Channelling that Fear

Every boxer has it no matter what they tell you, the fear, it never goes away. Boxers to me are the most exposed athletes in the world. Everyone in the crowd and on TV concentrated on the fighters, watching their every twitch and every movement. Seeing how those fighters reacts to punishment as well as watching them dish it out. Yet what we rarely ever see in a fighter is the fear. At the highest level it's down to them being well trained to hide and control their emotions.

But using it as a weapon, channelling it to your advantage to make you sharper, faster, almost superhuman for that fight, that's the skill! A lot of fighters have that, and we have all felt that same fear as well. Take school as an example when you might have had to stand up to a fight. Now you could be one of those heroes who will rise to the fear and take it on, or a coward who backs down. But that feeling of fear is always there, and it feels the same for all of us.

In boxing I believe we have seen some good examples of this on show.

Hatton vs Tszyu

Hatton that day for 12 rounds was almost superhuman, he walked through anything Kosta threw at him and kept up an intense pace throughout the fight. The fear Hatton had that day really drove him on to great things in that fight.

Benn vs McClennan

Those knockdowns in round one triggered something in Benn for me. He always controlled his fear, but on that night I felt there was something extra there, another level. A refusal to go down and stay down.

Of course, there is always the flip side, or the coward's side as you will when a fighter crumbles. Audley Harrision strikes me as a classic example of a fighter who just didn't have control over his fear. When faced with adversity, he went into a shell. Even in his last fight against Haye you could see the fear in Audley. All that bravado in the build up gone as soon as the first bell rung.

So my questions are...

• What fights have you seen where a boxer has channelled his fear to perform almost superhuman feats?
  
• Which boxers have you seen fail because that couldn't control it?
  
• Any personal stories you can share about the subject?

Of course if you want to make any other points about the topic, please feel free to comment. As always, it will be interesting to hear what my fellow 606v2'ers feel on this.

kevchadders wrote:Every boxer has it no matter what they tell you, the fear, it never goes away. Boxers to me are the most exposed athletes in the world. Everyone in the crowd and on TV concentrated on the fighters, watching their every twitch and every movement. Seeing how those fighters reacts to punishment as well as watching them dish it out. Yet what we rarely ever see in a fighter is the fear. At the highest level it's down to them being well trained to hide and control their emotions.

~ Mr. Chadders, sir, if I may be so kind as to point out what a superbly written and interesting article that you have originated before I pick it apart with due respect.

A generalization may be inherently true as I do believe your article most excellently examines, but also there are too many exceptions to the rule to blithely ignore. A more precise generalization would be that some fighters were born to the battle and can barely maintain their veneer of civility before the first bell, pointing to Mssrs. Toney & Tapia who live for the battle no matter how old and decrepit they become.

<<<<<< you have the utterly ferocious Mssrs. Ketchel and Fitzsimmons and too many to list in between.

I believe that your article may have it's roots in former title challenger Ice John Scully who penned a most excellent, Green Mile article that you can read here and link to his website for any questions. No doubt there have been similar articles through the ages.
http://cooljustice.blogspot.com/2009/01/iceman-john-scullys-green-mile.html

It should be pointed out that most all "performers" of the stage, field & political/boxing rings have butterflies born of adrenaline mixing with anxiety about being "embarrassed" or "outclassed" in front of the public, always a bit of embarrassment to be caught with your pants down as it were unless you are of the exhibitionist mentality, another ball of wax entirely, but mainly,

Good show and bully to you, sir, which leads to my next recommendation for you to look at:

The Bully!

Tally Ho~Ho~& away I gallop to lasso those darned polluting moon beams that distort my night skies.....

Thanks for the kind comments Perfessor and that link which i've just finished reading. It was a good read and one site that will be bookmarked for the future.

ps. You do sound very familar like an old alias that used to roam 606 back in the day .

kevchadders wrote:
[list][*]What fights have you seen where a boxer has channelled his fear to perform almost superhuman feats?
[*]Which boxers have you seen fail because that couldn't control it?

~Sir, returning to the specific directives of your article, if I may, I'd like to use two more commonly known examples that serve to highlight compelling fear of the impending with noted results.

1919, Jack Dempsey the Giant Killer and Legend of Lore was birthed on American Independence Day, July 4th in this easy to remember year, 1919.

Jess Willard at 6'6, 240 lbs would be considered a huge man even by today's supersized standards, but add in a reputation as a mankiller in the ring, two deaths attributed to his vaunted straight right that also left Jack Johnson iced down for several minutes back in Old Havana in another bout of lore, Mr. Jack can surely be forgiven for staring down the butterflies crawling up his shoelaces in the prefight intros. He had just signed a waiver releasing Willard from any legal liabilities if Mr. Jess should by "chance" happen to deposit him six feet under.

The rest is a textbook study of the first ever recorded Exploding Spectacular Big Punch Combination Sequence that knocked the Giant on the canvas sporting a right cheekbone freshly caved in with various teeth and senses knocked asunder.

The results have withstood The Test of Time.

February 25, 1964, a nondescript Tuesday when Americans were returning back to the blessed normalcy of the workplace after 3 consecutive Sundays' peace had been rudely interrupted by the hysteria of millions of schoolgirls screaming for John, Paul, George and the other Ringo.

No Rest for the Weary, Sir, as the Louisville Lip looked to be the main course on the dinner plate a hungry BEAR euphemistically named Sonny. Adrenaline mixed forebodingly with fear at the weigh-in as Mr. Lip was almost put on a stretcher to be rushed to the hospital when his blood pressure and pulse spiked to dangerous levels(FAIL!). Mr. Sonny broke open the gate only to find himself in hot pursuit of the darting shadow of his quicksilver prey, finally pulling up lame, lumped, and well sliced up for the night's dinner plate instead.

And the rest as they are famously fond of saying, is History.