Now consider the ones that are not lucky. Those boxers who have once been champions, who are considered heros, whose fans cannot believe that the skills that made them great are gone. These unlucky boxers fight past 35, deluded by their fans, by their managers, by their mirrors and by their brains, which are not functioning in a manner that allow them to make the correct judgments. Surrounded by people who want them to fight for financial or other reasons, deluded by their own egos and flawed judgments, seeing themselves as they were, not as they are, viewing the new raw fighters as easy pickings, they return in a pathetic travesty, a worn remake of every Hollywood B movie about boxing, These are the prime candidates for the punch drunk syndrome, the prime candidates to be pointed to by the clucking do-gooders who wish to eliminate boxing.

Well, why does a Muhammad Ali come back again and again? Why would a man like Joe Frazier try it again? Is it money? Not in these cases. Are they going anywhere in boxing? They've been to the mountain top and are not likely to get there again. If not money or the championship, what then?

Fame and the spotlight are habit forming. Once seduced by the roar of the crowd, the old champions have to try it again, and in the meantime, Mother Nature is taking her toll and accelerating the pace of the fighter's downfall. It is a no win situation. It's a bad business proposition; there is no gain, only loss in the offing.

If, by disastrous mischance, the old fighter has been ''off'' for a period of time, one year to three years, then the risks are dramatically multiplied. That is what happens in a retirement period.

The scars on the brain begin to bite into the brain tissue. Function is impaired. Speech is the most recognizable sign. Does Muhammad Ali speak today as he spoke in 1971? Listen to Ali yourself and hear the dramatic and sad slowing of Ali's speech, slurring of his words, slowing of the mental processes. It is a fallacy to say that we are all 10 years older than we were in 1971. In the legs, yes, not in the mouth. The mouth is the last to go. If the speech defect is recognizable, other signs are not visible to anyone but fight people. Reflexes slow down, and with slower reflexes come bigger beatings. The ability to block and slip punches go, and if you are unlucky, like Ali and Frazier, you find you are one of nature's freaks. You can take a punch.

As happened to Ali after his Government induced retirement, Ali found his once razor sharp reflexes were not there anymore. Oh, he was still faster than most heavyweights, but he was not the super heavyweight speedster who destroyed Ernie Terrell, Cleveland Williams, Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston and Zora Folley. He hardly got hit in those fights. After three years of enforced retirement, and still in his 20's, Ali returned to flounder around against a cut-prone Jerry Quarry and a tough Oscar Bonavena and then finally he faced his biggest test an iron jawed Smokin' Joe Frazier.

Ali did get hit that night in 1971 in the Garden. Got hit by a pile-driving puncher who was relentless, and Ali found that his legs would not carry him out of the heavy artillery range of Joe Frazier. That night Ali found out that he could take a punch. It was reinforced later against Foreman in Zaire where the rope-a-dope was born. Ali could simply lay on the ropes and let an opponent beat on his body until the assailant was tired and then Ali took over.