FOR every winner there is a loser, and for every loser there is a lesson. Within every lesson, meanwhile, there is a reminder that great fighters rise up from the debris and that much of boxingโs appeal is rooted in the compelling nature of its defeats. As Joyce Carol Oates put it, โBoxing is about failure far more than it is about success.โ
A loss can happen quickly or it can be prolonged like torture. It can be incredibly painful or it can be so swift it reduces the experience to something as blissful as an impromptu mid-afternoon nap. It can be embarrassing. It can be empowering. It can expose limitations and it can expose torsos, stripping a boxer of what was once around their waist. It can be unexpected and it can be greeted by silence. It can, if youโre a journeyman accustomed to losing, be just another nightโs work, not far off an art form.
There are numerous ways to lose in the boxing ring and the sight of a boxer losing is so commonplace we often only think of it as the ying to the winnerโs yang. The cover image of the victor, wrapped in gold, stood in the middle of the ring posing for photographers before commenting on action replays, counterbalanced by an unseen image of the loser, for whom replays exist not on television but in their mind as nightmares, exiting the ring and solemnly traipsing backstage.
But what really happens to these boxers after a loss? And how does it really feel to lose? Not lose like a journeyman, but really, truly, badly lose; lose in a high-profile fight in a sold-out venue; lose when they werenโt supposed to lose; lose so quickly the humiliation hurts more than the punches. How do those defeats feel?
David Haye was never supposed to lose to Carl Thompson in 2004. It was a calculated risk to take the fight โ in light of the fact Haye was just 10-0 and Thompson boasted power and the greater experience โ but made sense on account of Thompson being 40 years of age, presumed to be on the slide, and Haye, 23, carrying the cocksure swagger of a man for whom the result and life itself was already written.
Which is what made the eventual outcome, a fifth round stoppage in favour of Thompson, all the more shocking for us, those familiar with the script, and for Haye, the lead actor, whose lines we assumed were rehearsed. It wasnโt delivered before of a sold-out crowd (in fact, Wembley Arena was half-empty that night), nor was the defeat a particularly hurtful one. But that wasnโt the point. For Haye, exhausted rather than bashed up, no defeat could be worse than one he didnโt see coming.
โIโm fine,โ he said afterwards, propped up on a bench in his changing room, both legs stretched out in front of him, a doctor by his side. โIโve just got a massive f**king headache, thatโs all. Itโs probably the worst headache Iโve ever had. It feels like someoneโs attacking my brain with an axe. Itโs killing me.โ
Haye spent that Friday night in hospital, the result of this head pain, and was then grabbing fast food from a drive-thru the following afternoon. An afternoon, on the face of it, like any other.
โI just felt like s**t in there,โ he said. โMy legs were the problem. They felt so heavy and slow. I couldnโt lift them at all by the third round. I had no life, energy or bounce in them. As soon as my legs went, I couldnโt get in position to throw my shots. I tried getting on my bike and outboxing him, but it wouldnโt happen. I was never hurt.โ
A couple of days later Haye went on holiday, on his own, to Gran Canaria. The plan, he said, was to, โsit by the pool and think for a week or two,โ which, by all accounts, he did. He first relaxed, then got serious, and then refocused on a career that would eventually lead to world titles as a cruiserweight and heavyweight. He also wrote a 3,000-word statement and a poem.
โBoxing is a sport,โ the poem began. โSports are there for us to play. Playing should make us happy. Happiness is a chemical reaction in the brain. Boxing damages the brain.โ
David Price was never supposed to lose to another Thompson, Tony Thompson, when the pair boxed in 2013. The plan, we were led to believe, was for Price, winner of 15 fights in a row, to add the scalp of Thompson, a seemingly faded American, to his resume and then push towards world heavyweight title honours.
But that never happened. Price was cuffed around the ear by a hook and the fight was over in round two.
โIโve always been accused, and rightly so, of probably not believing in myself,โ Price said. โI get in the ring and hope I’m going to win. I have little doubts. That night was no different.โ
It was a step up in class for Price, no question, but one he was expected to navigate without tripping. Trip he did, however, and it wasnโt until he lost to Thompson a second time, five months later, that he accepted heโd got it all wrong.
โBeing honest, the jump to Tony Thompson was probably a little bit too far,โ Price told Chris Walker following his fifth-round loss. โSeven months earlier he was fighting Wladimir Klitschko for the world title.
โThere was no doubt I was getting moved quick and I was okay with it at the time because the momentum Iโd built up made me feel like I could beat anyone. But I was caught and that was that.โ
Only it wasnโt. Thompson, decked in round two in the rematch, later failed a drug test, which served to smudge the ink on the result and leave Price, a man also knocked out by Erkan Teper, another drug cheat, incensed.
โIโm my own worst critic,โ he said. โSo, initially, I thought it doesnโt matter, I lost. But then I spoke to a lot of people about it and they said, โLook, it shouldnโt be classed as a fight.โ
โEven though Iโm going in there believing Iโm going to win, theyโve got an edge psychologically. They believe they are invincible. I have to tell myself it made a difference.โ
In May 2014, George Groves was the favourite in his own mind but a narrow underdog with the bookies ahead of his rematch with Carl Froch. The odds hardly mattered to Groves, so convinced was he that he had โThe Cobraโs number, nor did they matter to anyone who had watched the Londoner manhandle Froch for the majority of the eight-and-a-half rounds they spent in one anotherโs company in November 2013. Out with the old, in with the new, the Wembley Stadium rematch, many felt, represented a changing of the guard.
But it didnโt work out like that. In a bout full of tension, Groves outboxed Froch in parts, moved more than he did in their first encounter, and then, in round eight, didnโt move enough and found himself in line for the mother of all right hands, a cross so powerful it not only caught him on the chin and knocked him off his feet but, in an instant, shut down everything: his body, his mind, his hopes and dreams.
Groves, afterwards, sat in his away changing room, eyes to the floor, and attempted to digest the setback as 80,000 people fled down Wembley Way. He was then told, by his mother, that he ended the fight on his feet and should therefore feel proud; that he was winning; that, over the course of two fights, he showed he was the better boxer. Groves smiled. โThanks, mum,โ he said, โbut that doesnโt really mean anything right now.โ
Groves had lost before. But never like this. Never on this stage, on this scale. Never to someone he truly despised. Never to someone with whom heโd forever be synonymous; someone he would never again get the chance to beat.
โItโs that reality check that keeps you grounded,โ Groves said of the loss. โGrounded in the sense that you ainโt anything special. Youโre not the greatest fighter. Youโre not the cleverest guy out there. You just might have been clever for that one moment in time. That doesn’t mean you wonโt be again. But you can’t always be three steps ahead of everyone else.โ
Groves didnโt hide. Far from it. He sat on the sofa of his apartment in Isleworth, alongside then-coach Paddy Fitzpatrick, and decided to watch the knockout punch not once, not twice, but a total of nine times in a row.
โI feel I can look at it for what it is now,โ he said. โHe hit me with the best shot of his f**king career and itโs embarrassing and annoying for me that Iโm the c**t he hit with it.
โIf you asked him to do it again, though, heโd never be able to. The stars wouldnโt align and that shoulder wouldโt be open when I try and hook. Ultimately, you drill everything in the gym, but, to a certain extent, youโre always winging it in there. I did the wrong thing at the wrong time. I still think I was unlucky.โ
By the Monday, two days after the loss, Groves was on the phone to his promoters begging them for another fight. By August, he was on his way to California to spar Gennady Golovkin, the most terrifying puncher on the planet. Finally, as months passed, Groves, the current WBA world super-middleweight champion, found comfort in the notion that things could have been a whole lot worse.
โI remember before the (James) DeGale fight and both Froch fights I had this great fear of being wiped out in one round,โ he said. โIt was a haunting feeling, something I couldnโt control. I feared getting knocked out straight away. Theyโd say I was out of my league and Iโd never be able to remove that humiliating defeat from my record.
โSo, if I look at it that way, Iโm now thinking, thank f**k I didnโt get knocked out in the first round in front of 80,000 people. Thatโs always a f**king panic before any fight.โ
Amir Khan was never supposed to lose to Breidis Prescott in 2008, let alone do so inside 54 seconds of the first round. But he did and it shocked the world. Worst of all, it seemed to confirm suspicions that the 2004 Olympic silver medallist was fragile and would therefore fall short of fulfilling his potential. At least that was the narrative at the time, some 11 years ago.
โYou always think nobody will beat you,โ Khan said. โI was no different. I didnโt think anybody could beat me as a teenager and then, when I was older and stronger, I thought Iโd be the best ever.
โEven though I got beaten badly against Prescott, I still had that belief. I still thought Iโd become a world champion. I just saw the loss to Prescott as a bump in the road.
โSome people suffer a defeat and it destroys them. You see that time and time again. It finishes them. Theyโre never the same. But Iโve always used my defeats in a good way. I ask myself why I suffered the defeat and it helps me to improve. Iโve always tried to change something after a loss.โ
Khan sucked it up, reinvented himself in Los Angeles, and within three fights had beaten Andreas Kotelnik to lift the WBA world super-lightweight title, a belt heโd successfully defend five times.
The best of them do that, you see. They change. They learn. They get better. A defeat, rather than finish them off, adds rings to their trunk, pages to their story, depth to their personality. It makes an endearingly flawed human being of men and women who strive to be anything but.
And perhaps, for a boxer, thatโs whatโs so scary about it.