Thirteen Fights

The Chicago Golden Gloves are on, so I took a train ride out to Cicero Stadium.  Andres was scheduled to have a super heavyweight match.  His fight was number nine on the list, which was a little surprising to me.  Usually, the heavyweight fights don't happen until further down the list.  But Alan said, "No, they mix up the fights to keep things interesting."  Another surprise was, even though it was the second night of the tournament, only thirteen fights had been scheduled for the evening.  Normally, there are anywhere from twenty to twenty-five fights taking place in one evening.

The crowd wasn't very big, and people seemed to be subdued.  I figured it was because of the hard winter we're still going through.  It's March, but there are piles of snow everywhere, and the temperatures continue to be down in the basement.

Arnold and his friend Jasmine, a school teacher, was there.  Andres had a friend with him, a guy whom I think he's brought to the gym before.  The usual suspects were on hand -- Shifty, Gary, Yale, Alan R., George, Johnny, Rico, Metzger, Sam, Tina, Gentleman Gerald, etc., as well as former pro fighters like David Diaz.  The guy who's always at the tournament telling people to "have a Corona!" wasn't there, but he'll probably appear at some point.

All of the fights moved along at a good clip.  Several were stopped for various reasons.  One guy took a rough shot to the body, fell down to the canvas, and stayed there for awhile.  Another guy was taking too many hits that rocked his head backwards.  Still another match was stopped because one guy kept getting backed up in the corners and not answering the punches thrown at him.

Andres' opponent was a hefty guy, but Andres hit first, and hit often.  There was a minute or two where the guy caught Andres with some lefts and rights, but the punches Andres threw back were much harder.  Both Alan and Arnold kept yelling for Andres to stay on the guy whenever Andres backed the guy up into the ropes or a corner.  In the middle of the second round, it was clear that both Andres and his opponent were tired.  But Andres kept coming like a bull.  The referee stopped the fight because the other guy became overwhelmed, and Andres won.  Andres next fight is two weeks from this Saturday.

I forgot my camera again, but Arnold and Jasmine took some pictures, as well as recorded a "post-fight interview" between myself and Andres.  As soon as I get those, I will post them up here.