Fourteen Bouts

Instead of judging fights at Harrison Park's boxing show, I worked the gloves table instead.  I followed the lead of the guys who were already at the table when I arrived.  The gloves and the headgear had to be wiped down after each fighter returned them after their bouts. 

Fourteen fights were done.  That was the biggest number of fights I had seen at a show in a long time.  Most of the bouts were slugfests. One girl received a bloody nose during one of the bouts.  One heavyweight appeared to try and wrestle the other one down to the canvas during another bout.  There were several knockdowns throughout the evening, but no knockouts. 

Too bad Juan -- from my gym -- couldn't attend.  He had to attend a party for an older brother of his who is going away to college.  Juan probably would have gotten a fight.  There was a long line of people trying to get matched up.  If Jaylin hadn't pulled a recent disappearing act, he may have been able to fight, too.  I'm just now learning that Jaylin has been missing for the past couple of weeks because he went on vacation. 

I was talking at length with Keith who spent five years in the amateur ranks, then 17 years as a professional boxer.  He said that most people who take up the sport don't want to run, but it is very important for stamina.  I do include running as part of the training I give, but people only do a couple of rounds of it within the gym.  It's seldom practical to have people run on the track behind the field house especially once the weather cools and the clocks are turned back.  The youth classes are only an hour.  Some kids are always rolling into class late and then dragging to get anything done.  I'm going to ask the youths to do running when they are outside of class.  I know it's a long shot to expect most of the kids to do extra exercise when they're not in the gym.  But something has to be done.

Shifty received an award for 30 years of service being a referee during the show.  He was surprised by that.  It was nice that he was recognized for his dedication. 

Better To Walk Out Than To Be Carried Out

Another friend in the boxing world, Lisa Creech Bledsoe, who runs a blog called The Glowing Edge, posted the fight above on her blog and commented on it.  This was a fight between Holly Holm and Anne Sophie Mathis.  I agreed with Lisa's assessment of how badly this bout was handled by Holm's corner as well as the referee.

Francisco Rodriguez died in the ring around Thanksgiving in 2009, and the month before, Rita Figueroa suffered a near-fatal hit during a match.  Both of those professional fights happened near the tail end of the Chicago Park District's amateur boxing tournament season.  I remember a lot of fights I saw after that were stopped at the first hint of a boxer being in trouble.  I was in a fight with Meg in December of that year that was stopped because I was taking too many hits.  People complain about fights being stopped all the time, as the one between Holm and Mathis was, eventually.  Blood lust gets the best of some spectators, and they just want to see someone stomped down.

I like to see a good beat down as much as the next person.  I cheer on the antics of professional wrestlers, despite the fact that the outcomes of all those type of matches were planned long before the wrestlers came into the ring (but pro wrestlers can and do get hurt for real sometimes. . .some have even died due to injuries).  When my siblings and I were kids, we'd fall out laughing at the fisticuffs between roller derby players, some of which were fake, and some of which were real.  I appreciate the moves I see in MMA.  I only pay attention to mainstream sports when I've heard that a brawl broke out on the playing field. 

However, I'd rather see a boxer walk out of the ring after a match than be carried out.  I usually don't bat an eye at the brutality in some matches, but the Holm/Mathis had me wincing.

As I watched the post-fight interview, I felt bad for Holm.  I even got -- and this is something I seldom admit to, folks -- teary-eyed.  I know the feeling of being on the losing end of a match, feeling embarrassed, frustrated, and angry about "Damn, I wish I could have done better!", while still trying to exhibit good sportsmanship.  I know we should all be adults about losing, but I sometimes go back to being that little girl on the schoolyard who just took a beating from two or more kids (which I did on a near daily basis back in grade school).  The ref and/or Holm's corner should have never let that fight go on that long.  Holm shouldn't have had to be knocked through the ropes and her cheek cut open before people finally woke up and decided enough was enough.  She could have been seriously, maybe even permanently hurt.  I give Mathis credit for not gloating over Holm's prone position in the ring. 

Boxing is a rough sport, but common sense among officials and corner people should never disappear once the bell to start the round begins.