Better Than Watching Paint Dry

Ariel, pictured above, did not get a fight at Humboldt Park this evening.  I was disappointed, even more so when a girl she could have fought showed up just as the boxing show began.  "I want to box," I overheard the girl say.  If that girl had boxed before, as I heard her bragging to her friends, she would have known she had to be at the show at least an hour ahead of time to get weighed in.  Thomas waited for people as long as he could, but he had to shut the scale down fifteen minutes before the show began.

Once again, James did not get a fight.  Unlike Ariel, who stayed to watch the matches, he went home after receiving the news.  It comes down to this -- James has to lose weight.  As long as James weighs in bigger than the average size nine- year-old who show up to get matches, James will never get a fight.

Several from Loyola Park -- Alan, Rojan, Paul, Michael -- came to the fight.  Michael got there too late to weigh in, and there was no fight for Rojan.  A man named Mr. Barak, who sat next to me in the audience asked why it seemed no adults participate in the boxing shows.  "Most of the adults are just in it for the workout.  They don't want to compete," I explained.

Maz's dad, Irving, was a great help to me during his son's fight, which was the fourth one of the evening.  He worked Maz's corner with me.  Maz was paired with a boy from Seward Park.  I kept telling Maz to get closer to his opponent to throw effective body shots.  Irving kept telling his son to tuck his chin in.  Maz's opponent was bleeding a little after the first round.  I noticed his opponent smirking at times during the action.  But Maz didn't lose his cool.  Maz's mouthpiece fell out during the last round, and I scrambled to rinse it off and get it back in.

Maz, shown here with his proud dad, won his fight.  That makes the third kid -- behind Ashley and Kishawn -- who have won matches since I've been running the gym.

That was better than the Cubs winning the World Series.  There was some talk about the baseball team's victory after 108 years of not winning at the boxing show, but thank goodness, there wasn't much of it.  "I'm glad they won," Alan told me, "but I couldn't watch the game.  I'm not a baseball fan.  It's like watching paint dry."