Why does James Bond take at least 7 hits before fighting back in Tomorrow Never ...

In Tomorrow Never Dies, I can't wrap my head around the scene where James Bond (played by Pierce Brosnan) fights the bad guys in black suits. Why doesn't Bond fight them forthwith as soon as they bring Bond to this recording studio? Why does Bond let these bad guys batter him at least 7 consecutive times, including being smacked once with a baseball bat, before Bond fights back and overcomes these bad guys?

This scene does a number on my head, pun intended. Being pelted and struck 7 times consecutively is much riskier than retaliating straight away. If any one of those 7 blows incapacitated Bond, the bad guys would have won right then and there. From a tactical standpoint, even if Bond can stomach the strike to his stomach, letting yourself get clobbered 7 times like a punching bag makes no sense. The best strategy is to eliminate the threat and defeat these bad guys as quickly as possible!

Valorum has the novelization answer, so that's the most correct answer, but I'm going to add an alternative, had that answer not been here first.

In a different situation, this can be a way to gauge your opponent(s). You can check how fast your opponent strikes, if they have tells, how hard they hit, where they may favor their targets, and a lot more. A veteran fighter can learn a lot from taking a couple of hits. They can figure out what it'll take to dodge, block, or even ignore future strikes. And you generally want to use simple blocks so you don't take any real damage. More complicated blocks can come later, like a block that ends in a grab or reverses into an attack can be better used once you know what your opponent is likely to do and respond with.

However, this isn't recommended in a group fight, especially where one side is drastically outnumbered, such as this scene. And you don't want to take weapons strikes at all. Plus, you still need to protect your head.

In this situation, Bond is simply taken by surprise and then he takes time to recover. Even when you are gauging your opponent, you don't want to take hits that could incapacitate you. The hits with the weapons should have been avoided regardless. Same with the headshots.

Even though Bond is knocked down, he has still gauged his opponents a little, which allows him to dodge the punch that hits the guy behind him. And then it's over from there. We just wait for the action to stop.