Have you ever fought professionally? I don’t mean simply being paid to fight, I mean legitimately striving to make a career out of it - as your sole source of income.
The individual nature of the sport means there are no substitutions when you’re hurt, or simply having a bad day. There’s no deflection in your own performance onto your team member either. Everything is on you and you’re literally fighting to put food on your table. And that’s the thing - you are fighting. The objective isn’t to score goals, tries, points or touchdown - it’s to inflict enough damage on the man opposite you to the extent that either his body crumbles, or his will breaks. That’s significant. How many other sports reduce their participants to literally quitting under the lights when faced with the sheer onslaught of their opponent? And in how many of them is quitting actually seen as some unimaginable crime?
I remember when Miguel Cotto fought Antônio Margarito who had gloves loaded with plaster of Paris. Cotto quit that night after taking an absolutely brutal beating for 11 rounds and was arguably never the same foghter again. He took an unbelievable amount of abuse for that - it’s brutal but the expectation (or even demand) that you should go out on your shield is pretty unique to combat sports.
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