Fighting At The Aragon

Barry was on a local independent radio station this morning to talk about the boxing program. There is a documentary that was done by Steve's brother-in-law, Kevin, that will be shown in early June. The documentary will focus on the youth boxing program. Junior's name was mentioned several times. Junior and Steve were supposed to be a part of the interview, too, but Junior stayed in bed, and Steve had to rush Ellen to the hospital. She is fine now, but it was a bit scary earlier.

The host of the show asked Barry if there had been an adult female boxer at the gym who was a graduate student. Barry mentioned mine and Lan's name. "Maybe it was Hillari," the host said. "Yeah," Barry said, "she's at Northwestern." I wish I had the time and money to go to grad school! I got a good laugh out of that.

Steve was able to make it to this afternoon's match at the Aragon. Mike came along, too. The place had been a ballroom back in the 1930s and 1940s. It is used for concerts and sporting events today. The program was a fundraiser for research to cure cystic fibrosis. It was a pro-am fight, meaning both amateur and professional matches were featured. The draw was what was the last amateur match for a kid named Tome who is also a football hero at Notre Dame. The kid won, which I suspected he would, against Jeff, or TNT, as he is nicknamed. The crowd was clearly on Tome's side. News cameras were all around the ring to catch the action. I'm still trying to figure out why Tome is touted so much as the next best thing in boxing.

Junior was getting the best of his opponent, but for some reason, the judges were not watching the same one everyone else was watching. Junior was robbed. An older man came up to Steve and Junior immediately afterwards and said, "That was a bullshit decision!" Sadiq won his match. His opponent caught him a couple of times with some hard shots; Sadiq had his head up. After the second time, Sadiq stayed low.

Junior was pretty bummed out that he lost. He said that his brother had admonished him about losing other fights, stating that Junior had "talent, but not skills." I think that sometimes, Junior listens too much to negativity from others about his boxing.