Fear according to research is an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm. While Most boxers won’t admit to you it is one of the determining factors which decide a fight.
In as much as there are lithany of things that brings about this shananegan called fear; like inadequate training, trash talking, media hype, family pressures just to mention a few, it is much more psychological than any other thing.
Every pugilist has a way of dealing with their fears and there are fights that even astute fighters have conceded defeat even before the fight ever commenced.
So the big question is do boxers have fears ?
“I’ll never forget walking into ring that night, I knew that I was going to get a beat up already. It was like walking into a slaughter house and knowing that this is it. I’ve never felt that before in my life. Imagine going into the ring, knowing that you’re going to get beaten. I might as well have run back to the dressing room and taken off, but I’ve always decided to fight but I was a dead man walking when I stepped into the ring against Pacquiao. I had nothing left.” In the honest words of Oscar Dela Hoya’s after the defeat to Manny Pacquaio.
Ghana’s own Joshua Clottey was on record to have uttered ” I will personally kill any of my children who dare decides to go into pugilism.”
Imagine a pound for pound fighter standing just waiting for the bell to ring so he can run over and pummel you with everything he’s got. Every breath he takes causes every muscle to bulge and twitch with eager anticipation of what he is about to do to you. That is a summation of a boxer’s fears.
Media hype
“That is the only thing that bothered myself and Tyson. All of these reporters, they ask you the same question, so it starts wearing on the fighters because to be popular you have got to be seen. It starts wearing you down. The fighting, they’ve been doing that their whole lives. It’s about how many distractions they let in.” The words of Evander Holyfield, The only man to ever hold the world heavyweight championship belt four times.
“I look at boxing as 90% psychological… the physical side has very little to do with it, if anything” – those are the words of Tyson in “Sporting Heroes” (2014).
He further stated ” Your mind is not your friend Mike, I hope you know that. You have to fight with your mind, control it”. Cus D’Amato, in preparing a fighter like Mike Tyson.
“I think boxing for me is 90% mental during the duress or even 96 percent. it’s a majority mental for me more than physical. That’s why I’m able to speak and say what I’m going to do and actually deliver that because I believe in myself, I believe what I say, I believe in what I say I’m going to do.” Deontay Wilder ahead of his crucial bout against Cuban Louis ‘king kong’ Ortiz early this year which he won eventually via a TKO.
The ability to overcome your fear is pretty much psychological so what is psychology.
Cus D’Amato defines psychological warefare as “the art of mastering your own thoughts, to create the life that you want. To win the war against your own mind, which is almost always the only real factor stopping you from achieving what you want.”
In case you wondering Constantine “Cus” D’Amato was an American boxing manager and trainer who handled the careers of Mike Tyson, Floyd Patterson, and José Torres; all went on to become members of the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
“Scared every time I go into the ring, but it’s how you handle it. What you have to do is plant your feet, bite down on your mouthpiece and say, ‘Let’s go.’” Mike Tyson speaking on how he dealt with his fears.
There are big questions that linger on though for some is more the fear of defeat than anything, others is about the fear of being physically hurt or hurting his opponent or not delivering the performance needed or expected.
Fear of hurting the opponent
A typical example is Tyson Fury’s very honest advise to Tony Bellew on why he is not going to fight him
“The reason being, he is a family man and he has got a wife and kids and I want him to stay healthy and stay boxing, earn a few quid and go home easy to his family.
‘But if he steps in the ring with the Gypsy King and I unleash hell’s fire on him, he’s only a small man and I could damage and hurt him properly.
You are not messing with a David Haye who is 20 years out of date, you’re messing with someone who is 6ft 9in, 19 stone, in the prime of his life who could knock a wall down.
‘One of the hardest punchers in heavyweight boxing but they don’t know it. I don’t want to fight Tony Bellew, Tony Bellew is a light heavyweight, cruiserweight at best, so if I go in there and hurt him, how good is that?
How good does that make me feel when he shouldn’t be in the ring anyway.
‘To be honest and this is me speaking very honestly and openly, I don’t want to fight Tony Bellew,’ Fury told FightHype.
So is ‘fear’ that fearing a liability or simple a state of mind which is a quintessential for one’s success.
So to you young fighters out there aspiring to become world champions know that all boxers harbour a bit of fears but it’ simply about your ability to turn your ‘fear’ into your strength. The key is how you react to the fear.
like it is said many times, boxing is a performance business, hence you must deliver peak performance and anything less brings with it the risk of not winning the fight.