Just as there are various ways for a fighter to win a fight, so too are there various ways to lose. Some fighters sense their inferiority in the ring early and will then do all they can to survive, or give only the impression of trying to win, aware that there is an inherent danger in actually trying to do so. Other fighters, meanwhile, either sense this inferiority but ignore it, or simply power on in spite of it, and as a result end up giving more of themselves than anybody would expect them to give. 

It is these fighters we tend to call “warriors”. It is these fighters we also often worry about, both during the fight itself and later, when the damage they have accrued in pursuit of an unlikely victory catches up with them and has us all questioning what it really means to be brave. 

In the case of New Zealand’s Andrei Mikhailovich, this is what it meant to be brave on Friday –  90 seconds into his 22nd pro fight, he found himself nailed and wobbled by a left hand thrown by Janibek Alimkhanuly, the IBF middleweight champion. It was a punch big enough to change the course of any fight, only this fight, the toughest of Mikhailovich’s career, was still in its infancy – still in round one. 

Moreover, it merely set the table, for there were more shots to follow and bigger ones, too. An even bigger left hand in the next round, for instance, rocked Mikhailovich when he fell in after throwing his own sloppy right lead. It was an old-fashioned counter punch from Alimkhanuly, yet the ease with which he found and delivered it highlighted Mikhailovich’s limitations and suggested this fight would not last long. 

In truth, it seemed as though two rounds would probably be the extent of the punishment. Already figured out, and already hurt more than once, Mikhailovich, in round two, was nailed repeatedly by left uppercuts thrown from Alimkhanuly’s southpaw stance and was soon wobbling around the ring and into the ropes. He did well, in fairness, to initiate a clinch at one stage, but on the whole he was a defenceless target for Alimkhanuly, whose confidence could be detected both on his face and in his posture. 

With 30 seconds to go in the second, he snapped Mikhailovich’s head this way and that with a combination and appeared capable of landing every shot he threw. Another left sent the challenger back into a corner and this time the ropes, rather than just signifying that he was trapped, helped Mikhailovich to stay upright. There was then another right hook and left uppercut landed by Alimkhanuly, and Mikhailovich both stumbled backwards and lurched forwards, not knowing which direction of travel was preferable; safer. Not knowing much at all, alas. 

When he finally threw punches of his own, or pushed out his arms, Mikhailovich hit only air and saw only Alimkhanuly, 31, smiling back at him. Presumably unnerved by this, Mikhailovich then put his hands up by his face, steeled himself for an attack, and allowed Alimkhanuly to once again fire. When he did, Alimkhanuly crashed a left against Mikhailovich’s right glove and even this – the sheer force of it – was sufficient to put the 26 year old on unsteady legs and send him to the canvas. 

It was while there, on the canvas, that Mikhailovich performed his best impression of Trevor Berbick and struggled to first get his legs to work and then get to his feet. The fight, in all honesty, could have been stopped there, but he nevertheless got up, albeit too quickly, and said to his coach in the corner between rounds: “Yeah, I’m good.”

It was a fib, of course – an example of the self-deception all fighters use as a shield when going into battle. Mikhailovich was not “good” in any regard at that moment in time and indeed the fact the fight was about to advance into round three was a scary thought for most watching. As brave as Mikhailovich was, it was hard to reckon with the fact he was out of his depth technically and seemingly only capable of using bravery to have this fight become anything other than a quick blowout and mismatch. In other words, for Mikhailovich to progress in this fight, and maybe even turn it around, he would have to absorb a concerning amount of further punishment, all delivered by an opponent, in Alimkhanuly, clearly levels above him. 

Those are only the thoughts of the observer, however. The fighter himself will rarely acknowledge or entertain the same thoughts and that is what allows them to continue in a fight like that. Mikhailovich, for example, wiped the impact of round two from his mind, if not his body, and came out with fresh defiance in the third, even landing two solid rights of his own. You wondered then whether it would be possible for Mikhailovich to use Alimkhanuly’s confidence – that is, his superiority – against him and have it reframed as the complacency that allowed him to redress the balance and work his way back into the fight. But no sooner had you explored this rather fanciful idea than Alimkhanuly would sting him again and you would remember how these things tend to play out. 

By the sixth, Mikhailovich was almost sticking to Alimkhanuly, not wanting to give him any room to extend his arms and punch. Yet he was also taking hellacious left uppercuts whenever leaning forwards, as well as a right hook that landed on the bell to end the round and had him staggering back to the corner. It was a sickener, that shot – no different from the last or indeed the next – and the combination of Alimkhanuly’s accuracy and Mikhailovich’s inability to defend himself made the spectacle a grim one to behold; one you wished had ended not long after it had started. 

That it lasted until round nine is as much an indictment of Alimkhanuly’s nonchalance – or maybe cruelty – as it is a testament to Mikhailovich’s heart. It could have finished so much earlier, yet the combination of these two things ensured it went on longer than was both necessary and healthy; stopped only when, in round nine, Alimkhanuly almost unglued Mikhailovich’s head from his neck with consecutive uppercuts. 

Without wanting to appear squeamish, it was a tough way to lose and a tough sight to bear. It was the sort of fight that has you both full of admiration for the way the loser is battling on, and also questioning whether the sensible thing is to perhaps lose in a different, safer way. It is not the brave thing to either think or act like that, but the fighter’s view of the fight in which they are toiling will always be different from that of someone watching it through their fingers. 

That’s probably what separates us in the end – this thought process. It’s what separates observers from fighters and it’s what separates fighters like Andrei Mikhailovich and Ronny Rios from fighters who clock an exit sign in a fight and head as soon as possible in that direction. 

Ronny Rios, you see, is cut from a similar cloth. He fought Nick Ball on Saturday, not long after Mikhailovich had suffered in the pursuit of nothing, and had a similar experience to the Russia-born New Zealander. It wasn’t a fight as one-sided as what we saw in Australia, but still there was an element of target practice for Ball, the WBA featherweight champion, and still we had to watch Rios sustain a great deal of punishment in order for him to feel like he was “challenging” in any way, shape or form. 

In round three he was dropped by a left uppercut from Ball – the final shot of a multi-punch combination – and never was Rios really given room to breathe, let alone flourish. Ball, in fact, was pretty much relentless. He was relentless with his punches and because of this Rios, 34, was forced to work at a pace ill-judged and only ever detrimental to his safety. The more passive he became, the easier it was for Ball, 27, to unload without worrying about a retort. However, the more active Rios became, the more openings he created for Ball to land something big, as we saw in round three. 

By round 10, the round in which the fight ended, Rios had been dropped twice – once in the third, and once in the seventh. He had won not a single round to that point, albeit not for the want of trying, and for nine rounds all we had heard was the sound of Ball’s punches on Rios’ flesh. We heard his lips release air every time he threw, always followed by a denser sound when the punches landed, and this soundtrack was both loud and constant throughout. The only sound louder, in fact, was the sound of the crowd when witnessing Ball pummel Rios through the ropes in round 10, whereupon the fight swiftly ended. 

To his credit, Rios, like Mikhailovich, audaciously gave the impression of wanting to carry on. He rolled under the bottom rope to re-enter the ring and even got back to his feet, breathing heavily as Bob Williams, the referee, administered a count. It was then, however, that the waving of a white towel in the away corner saved the courageous Californian from himself. It also saved the rest of us from having to watch one man relentlessly beat up another just to confirm something we knew a long time ago.