Not to sugar coat a rough sport with a real history of terrible concussions and their consequences, but boxers get to punch back. They’re also rewarded for dodging punches when it gets them to their clear tangible goal: winning a match. In a real sense they have a lot of control over how and when they get punched.
None of that applies to this allegory. Dodging the punch got the protagonist put on a three-punch PIP. Who knows what punching back would have led to.
