Combat Sports Applicable To Self Defense

I laugh when traditional martial artists and self defense focused guys say that I'm combat sport oriented and they are reality oriented. How can they be more reality oriented especially when they have no combat experience. They haven't spent years in boxing and kickboxing gyms getting hammered by champion fighters, guys who practiced seperating men from conciousness under the guise of sport. They have not been thrown and submitted my world class grapplers. They have not competed in tournaments where fighters fight multiple fights in a day through pain, fatigue, and injury. They have not faced logged in miles of road work, countless rounds of sparring, and conditioning to prepare for fights. The have not faced trained athletes from different arts. And the list goes on. I ask them to try any of these things and then let me know if they think these things will help them in the make believe fights for their lives.