The infamous "Lucky Punch"

This is a phrase you hear usually when someones favorite fighter gets knocked out, or when a fighter someone doesn't like wins. On a slightly less biased scale, one might use it when a fighter who is up on points get finished when they were on their way to winning a decision.

Now the meaning behind this phrase is no doubt to belittle the skills of the victor and chalk up the W to a "lucky" shot. Now let's look at this honestly without thinking how your friend, favorite fighter or hero lost a fight that from your couch you thought they had no business losing.

When does a fighter throw a punch? When they are trying to inflict damage to their opponent. Has anyone ever thrown a punch thinking, "Man I really hope this punch doesn't hurt them or knock them out, I'm really just trying to set up my takedown."? I doubt it. Punches may be thrown at different angles for different strategic reasons or to set up another attack but every time you see four knuckles flying at your face it's safe to assume the person owning those knuckles is not trying to make your day better.

So where does the luck get attributed? That person's lucky he threw the punch? Well he meant to throw the punch so that isn't it. Intention shows skill, he is doing something he trained to do to damage his opponent. Is he lucky the other guy didn't slip or block it? Well no one gets hit on purpose. That means the guy that got hit either didn't see it (lack of awareness) or didn't respond properly (lack of skill).

So no matter how you look at it, when one guys is one the canvas and the other is flexing for the cameras, a knock out shows a skill gap between two fighters.