My first real boxing match
There was too much of a build- up. Too many people were asking. I still had not made my presence known at one of my halls legendary "Fight Nights". They were boxing matches held every couple of days; where two people would go in the ring wearing boxing gloves and slug it out for three rounds. I'd been running my mouth on the hall for about a week; talking about how I could take down anyone in the hall, any night at one of these matches. I wasn't even planning on fighting. I didn't even want too fight. But because so many people were coming up to me, everytime I walked onto the hall, asking me when I was going to fight, I had to give them a time. Thursday, 11:00pm. Sharp. I wanted to get to bed as soon as possible. So now I was committed to fighting, with no way of backing out. I went through the day like all others, completing my 12 mile speed workout (in the rain), and doing some homework. Soon enough, 11pm rolled around. I walked down to the "fight room", and saw all the people crammed into one single dorm room. It was a regular bedroom, but it had been re-designed to look like a boxing ring, with the people on the outsides forming a ring to keep the fighters inside. Nowhere to hide. So I walked in and pretty much the entire hall was in there becasue they all wanted to see whether I could back up what I'd been talking about all week. I looked around and my contender wasn't anywhere to be seen. Let me tell you a little bit about who I was fighting: he was about my height but had about 20 lbs. on me and is a sophmore/junior who has been doing these matches since he's been here. He's a fighter that no one would challenge, so when I challenged him, he jumped at the chance. But he was running late. While I was in the room waiting for him to show up (he was driving back from Roanoke- from hockey practice), I decided to keep the crowd's attention by telling jokes about him. I was saying things like, "Yeah Jordan just called to say he was stopping at the gym to do some more curls to add some size to his biceps!". No one thought I had much of a chance because this guy is in a different weight class then me, and they'd never seen me fight. But I had a strategy. I was going to just run at him and start swinging like crazy (My mom would be proud because I was wearing no mouthguard on my teeth that she'd spent much money on!). Finally he showed up. As soon as he walked in, of course, people started telling him the stuff I'd been talking about. He started to get mad. We got our gloves put on and took our shirts off, ready to fight. Right before "the official" let us go, I decided I'd say one last thing: "C'mon guys! Didn't I tell you not to match me up against a girl!" Okay, now he was very angry. Round One- we both ran at each other swinging, turning the fight into a slug fest, exactaly what I wanted. I knew if he was angry, he wouldn't be able to concentrate on good form. He got the first head shot in, and it kind of woke me up, and I started going for the head too. The first round went by quick, and it was very furious. By the end of it, I was bleeding from my nose/eye, and he was bleeding from his chin. We had about a minute or two before the next round. Round Two- We started the same as round one, but by the end of the round, he was getting worn out by the furiousity of the fight. There was never a point of let up during any part of any round. Just swing after swing. And the funny thing was, we never tried for any body shots; every punch was aimed for the head. Round three- he was very very tired. I was a little tired, but because I run 75 miles a week I had more endurance. This round I was able to duck under almost all his punches and was rarely hit. I used it to my advantage because I was able to get in a lot of head shots in the round. I definently owned the 3rd round. By the end of the fight, we were both pretty spent and were both bleeding from a lot of different spots. I was bleeding from my nose/eye, my chest, and my left shoulder. They declared it a tie at the end, although a lot of people believed I'd won because of the last round and all the shots I'd gotten in. But hey, a tie in my first ever boxing match isn't that bad. Huh Mom!