Scrap - an old fighter friend of mine once said that the guy that has been hurt before lots of times knows what to do. He knows that time is going faster than it seems, he knows it's not really a dream that he's on the floor etc. That experience can help him ride the storm. Larry Holmes was good at this, but it was Ali who wrote the best about it in his autobiog "The Greates". It's worth buying for that passage alone. Have you read it?


I'm not saying that all-out gym wars are the best for this - though Philly fighters and Detroit fighters who come up the hard way tend to have better chins - but I think this is because they have been thoroighly tested in the gym and only the real good guys even make it outside the club circuit? I agree with what Lord's Gym said, too, it is a metter of technique to roll 'just so' with the punches - look at Jack Johnson, Roberto Duran, Buddy McGirt, James Toney, Mike McCallum .... underrated boxer-punchers who did not do all the flashy stuff that some others did, but were excellent at slipping and sliding and not getting hit square on that much. Amazingly, Joe Bugner was also really god at this, just a shame he could do little offensively?

It also seems to be that if you can teach a fighter better peripheral vision, ie more spatial awareness (like the England Rugby team did before the last world cup), you can see more around you and are less likely to be hit with the one you never saw coming - cause they are the ones that kayo you outright !!! I suppose that it comes with experience as well, but a bit of experimentation in this would not go amiss?