Well, They Came Back to Haunt Me

Remember those words I wrote a few months back something to the effect of:

"I pity the one who steps in the ring with me in few months time..."

Yeah, now I have to eat them.

I had my first amateur boxing match on 23 Sept 05 and it has taken me until now to give you the results.  For that I am truly sorry, but it is not all my fault.  That night after the match I had to fly out (actually about 2 hours after the match) to a tasking on the East Coast.  I was there for the next three months, came back and was on exercise until Christmas.  I finally got ambitious today and downloaded the video off the camera and now here is what happened.

I guess an article on sportsmanship was in the cards, because I lost.  Not only did I lose, but the fight was stopped in the second round.  However, in my defense, I have not come across one person who was there or who saw the video who believed it should have been stopped.  I sure as hell didn't and I wasn't doing all that  bad.  I certainly wasn't getting my ass kicked and I was far from finished.  You'll have to take my word on that.

Anyways, like I mentioned a while ago, everyone loses eventually.  I got my loss over with first.  Not the best for the confidence, but eventually you get over it.  My trainer says there is usually a pattern -- lose the first, win the rest (I believe Hopkins did that?) or --win the first, lose a few.  Whatever, he was probably trying to make me feel better.  I can tell you for certain that it sucks being the runner up, and it sucks even worse having the fight stopped.  I can imagine the only worse thing would be getting knocked out, but at least you could leave and not know what happened.

I sat in the airport that night after getting dropped off and reflected on the whole boxing thing and I'd be lying if I told you I didn't think about quitting.  That would definitely be the easy thing to do.  After all, I'm 31, way too old to be boxing, right?  I was throwing quite the pity party at the airport and I bet for a few days after that.  Then I came around, went back to the gym and got my head straight again.  You win some, you lose some and how you react will dictate the rest of your life.

So, the fight...

I fought Jay Renaud, a boxer from Kerwin Boxing Club in Ottawa at the Rideau Carleton Raceway -- also in Ottawa.  It was his second fight, my first.  The first round went fairly well except that I got knocked down half way through.  He threw a right, and I was off balance (you can see it on the tape).  I hit the ground, the crowd roared -- my first embarassment and my first eight count.  Man, it was a night of firsts.  Must remember not to cross legs -- always stay in the stance.

I actually saw his first fight.  He lost it because he didn't throw many punches at all.  Actually, his first fight was also stopped.  I believe he was cut above the nose.  He was in much better shape this time around.  It was obvious he had been training hard and he did well.

In the first, there was only one time I was really on the defensive and you can see it in the video, but I actually put my head down for a split second.  I didn't get rocked too hard, but I will definitely keep my hands up more.  It seemed like I wasn't snapping punches back and I was a split second behind in slipping.

Round two started off good, as you can see in this video and we exchanged a few blows.  He backed me into a corner and I thought I did well not to get pummelled in there.  I don't think he hit me at all.  At one point I ducked and slid left and at that point the referee must have thought I got nailed hard because he gave me another eight count, looked at me, said I looked "GLAZED" and stopped the fight.

WTF is GLAZED???

I was not impressed at all.  With further reflection though, it is an amateur match and we are inexperienced.  They always err on the side of safety and I can't really fault him for that...yes I can.  Damn it I was pissed.

Well, that is my first fight.  Take a look and feel free to leave me some pointers.  I can probably do without the smart ass comments, but if you feel you must, go ahead, I have thick skin.  I am now training for my second fight which will be in another few months.  I won't say anything this time and hope I don't have to post yet another learning lesson post.

P.S.  If you are fighting, video tape it.  While it is hard to watch yourself lose, you can pick out a whole lot of things you do wrong.  Knowing what you do wrong is half the battle to fixing them.

Box on.

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