I don't buy that "shielding his eyes" shit for one second. Even with the old footage, you could see Willard land that huge right FLUSH on the chin, and I've seen a TON of guys go down over the years who instinctively held their arms over their head due to being completely disoriented and going on pure instinct, even on the ground. He got knocked out, plain and simple.

And I don't get why he would brag about that, anyhow. I guess it was different and taking a dive was more accepted back then? But if a world champ got knocked out now and said "well I wasn't really knocked out I just threw the fight"... that would just make that fighter look 10x worse.