"Now, when they go in and face the opponent and the bell rings, for the first time…they’re facing reality, and suddenly a relative calmness comes over them. Relative. They’re still scared but it isn’t that terrible intimidating unknown thing….But the moment the blows start to be thrown, the effort to throw punches has begun, he gets calm, because now this is something he’s been prepared to cope with….However, I should add that at no time does fear disappear. It’s just as bad in the hundredth fight as it was in the first, except by the time he reaches a hundred fights or long before that he’s developed enough discipline where he can learn to live with it, which is the object, to learn to live with it…"
