One could read the speaker as an immigrant or a hippie or Bob Dylan as much as he likes, but the fact that it is so vague is what gives it its universal appeal. To my mind, the speaker and the boxer are the same, albeit perhaps at different times or in different personae. The first few stanzas are "the reminders of ev'ry glove" that wounded him at one time. Now, however, no longer "running scared" or "laying low," he has finally "cried out in his anger and his shame," and, though the "poor boy" has left, "the fighter still remains." The same speaker, albeit with a different attitude. However, in his recollections of the past, the boxer still seems somewhat plaintive, and acknowledges that he too is the poor boy in the unrecorded verse, that "after changes, we are more or less the same." The boxer's stoic attitude seems to square with that of the speaker of one of Simon's other songs, "I Am A Rock," suggesting that certain attitudes may be right for certain times and certain seasons, though we always remain as we are. A very deep and moving piece: I recognize myself in the poor boy ten years ago, in the boxer over the past five years, and today, as a man who needs to stop fighting.