Sounds more like a problem a leper might have to deal with.

I believe that there is cowardice in accepting a surreal situation when it is obviously so out of there that it could not exist. Fighting the other world's champion is irrelevant; one should be fighting the world, because it is untrue. Embracing the unreal is avoiding the truth. How much more cowardly could one be?

I would say that the man acted courageously.