Fighting is dangerous. It is going to hurt, win, lose or draw. You can be seriously injured. You can be killed. Fighting also almost always draws a crowd, whether on a street corner, field of grass or in a professional arena all of these statements are true and they will continue to be true long after you and I are gone my friend. With that being said if you do happen to be a pro in combat sports, the only difference between you and the guy who is drunk, fighting in a parking lot, is that people are paying you a lot of money for the risk.

I am not going to sugar coat what the sport of boxing or any other combat sport is, I am not going to tell you it always ends like the movies. There aren’t a lot of “Yo Adrian” moments in the sport of boxing. Usually after a guy has taken a beating, that’s it. He goes home and there isn’t any parade waiting for him when he gets there, if he gets there. Some don’t.

The guys you see on PPV or on ESPN, DAZN, PBC, FOX etc. are usually making a decent living and don’t have a lot financial worries. But these are the few not the many. Most boxers, your average Joe type, are not making millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in their careers. Most boxers are happy if they can pay rent and cover medical bills. But rich or not so much, all of the boxers you see or don’t see are willing to lay it on the line for the sport they love. They are willing to take that beating. Everybody knows the risks and they do it anyway and we all sign up to watch them do it.

We all hate to see a guy/gal get carted off or find out that he or she has fallen ill or worse later due to injuries suffered in the ring at the hands of another gladiator. We all want every fighter to be able to go home and put food on their table, no matter how big or small the table is or where they call home. We all want to see them be able to fight another day. The simple harsh truth of that matter is … it doesn’t always go that way. Some fighters end up in comas, paralyzed, have severe enough injuries to force retirement and yes some of them die. These moments along with all the celebrated ones are part of the sport.

I am not going to bore you with stats or charts about how many fallen fighters are out there or any sob stories that are feature film worthy. I don’t want to bring up any names of fighters that have suffered or those that may have caused the suffering. I am not going to tell you want to hear just for the sake of the story. I am just going to save you a seat at the next event so we can watch someone try their hardest to feed their family, by beating the hell out of the other guy trying to do the same thing for his.