Do Fighters Feel Guilty When Their Opponent Dies?

[Lomadeaux]

Fighters feel bad sometimes about beating down someone in the gym. It obviously depends on the opponent. A death can trouble a fighter for sure but overall it's the underlying nature of the sport. Gunslingers are a different breed of human.

[Cypocryphy]

Oleksandr Gvozdyk felt so bad that he had to quit. He could no longer punch with all his strength. I saw it when he fought Beterbiev. He couldn't throw punches with bad intentions anymore. And he just realized that he had to quit boxing.

The psychological effects on the boxer who accidentally kills another man in the ring is life long. It leaves scars forever.

Are there fighters who don't give a ****? I'm sure. There are de****able human beings in all professions, all around the world. But that's the exception to the rule.

[Tatabanya]

I'm pasting here an extract of an interview with Gabriel Ruelas, from the April1, 2021 issue of Boxing News. I think no words of mine are necessary.

"Another memory that never leaves me is the night I defended my world title against Jimmy Garcia in 1996.

During one of the rounds we shared I remember thinking he shouldn’t be in the ring with me anymore. He was just a punching bag for me. I was hitting him over and over again and my hands had even started to hurt. That was something I’d never felt in any of my other fights. I’d never had hand problems. I’d never had hand problems in the gym or in the ring. But I hit Jimmy so often and so hard that my hands were in pain. They’d gone sort of numb. I never in a million years thought I’d be in the ring one day worried about hurting a guy, but I was. It happened that night. I felt I was winning decisively but I couldn’t knock him out and the fight wouldn’t end unless I did so. I thought, Okay, I guess I’ll just have to keep beating him up, and that was a horrible thing to think.

I was worried because some of the shots I hit him with were sickening. I replay them in my mind even now and they seemed to happen in slow motion at the time. He just wouldn’t go down. I wished he would go down every time I landed a punch on him.

After Jimmy passed away, I went through that fight so many times in my mind and always put blame on myself. Maybe I shouldn’t have hit him with this shot or that shot. Maybe I shouldn’t have had such bad intentions before the fight and during the fight. We were taught to throw hurtful shots in the gym and to throw hurtful combinations, to the head and to the body, and I used all of that to hurt Jimmy Garcia. My intention going into the fight was to hurt him and make him quit so that I could defend my title.

Honestly, after that, I thought I’d never fight again. I thought that was it. But after days, weeks and months, and going through everyday life, you see the necessities your family needs and you realise you’re stuck with this. I had no choice but to fight. I had to fight because it was my job. You can’t just quit your job when something bad happens. It was what I chose to be. It was what I had dedicated my whole life to. I had to continue.

I knew I was a different person, though. I was now fighting with myself and before and during every fight I was trying to find something, some feeling, that I used to have and would never have again.

I used to go in there and want to beat these guys up so bad. I’d want to hurt them. Often, to motivate myself, I’d look at videos of Mike Tyson and watch his quick knockouts over and over. He’d go through guys and I’d think of him before fights. I wanted to hurt guys the way he hurt them.

But that completely stopped after Jimmy Garcia. It didn’t work for me anymore. I was too careful. I was careful of landing punches. That’s something you can’t do in this business because you can end up getting hurt yourself.

Truthfully, that’s why I wanted to fight on: to get hurt. I felt responsible, I felt it was my fault, and I felt I should be punished for what I did. I could only find peace by me getting hurt. I know that sounds crazy, but I wanted to get hurt in the ring just as Jimmy had been hurt. I needed to be punished for what I had done. I would fool everybody in training and look good but, when the fight came, it was time for what I wanted: I wanted to get hurt."

[GrandpaBernard]

Charles Conwell was the fighter who took Patrick Day and he seemed extremely bothered by it but said in an interview later that he was also motivated and felt like he was fighting on for both of them.

Charles is a smart man

That be the best way to go on after someone dies imo

[GrandpaBernard]

Oleksandr Gvozdyk felt so bad that he had to quit. He could no longer punch with all his strength. I saw it when he fought Beterbiev. He couldn't throw punches with bad intentions anymore. And he just realized that he had to quit boxing.

The psychological effects on the boxer who accidentally kills another man in the ring is life long. It leaves scars forever.

Are there fighters who don't give a ****? I'm sure. There are de****able human beings in all professions, all around the world. But that's the exception to the rule.

People might not like it

but not feeling any remorse over a dead opponent seems like it be an advantage

fortunately you don’t need to be remorseless to be a great fighter

most greats don’t have a body on their record

[Get em up]

Charles is a smart man

That be the best way to go on after someone dies imo

Yeah its reasonable to assume the guy that lost his life would want you to build a legacy in their honor.

[GrandpaBernard]

Yeah its reasonable to assume the guy that lost his life would want you to build a legacy in their honor.

Yep every fighter thinks highly of the guy who beat them

[creekrat77]

Max Baer killed a guy and it haunted him his entire life

[Tatabanya]

The documentary about Ray Boom Boom Mancini, The Good Son, comprises footage of the meeting and embrace between him and Duk-Koo Kim's son and wife, after many years from Kim's death at the hands of Ray.

Mancini's another man who was not the same after that event.

[CubanGuyNYC]

Fighters are human beings. As such, there’s a variety of ways they may feel; but I’m certain the vast majority of fighters would feel terrible if they killed someone in the ring. Yeah, these are the chances everyone takes by walking into the ring, but human emotions don’t care.