18. Discuss your boxing career in detail. Talk about martial arts and what you did.
Too much detail on shit like this is a self-serving wank IMHO, so I'll keep it brief.
My old man was a National Service middleweight boxing champion, so one wekk after my tenth birthday (28 years, 51 weeks ago tommorow as it happens !!!), he dragged me kicking and screaming to the local Police Citizens Youth Club to be taight to box (The legal age for teaching a childs to box is 10).
I fucking hated every goddamn fucking minute of it.
Every second I could I'd piss off to the weight section of the gym, so I started lifting weights (by proxy) regularly when I was like 11 years old.
Doctor said it would stunt my growth... yeah, like right mate !!
Same doctor also said smoking would stunt my growth when I was 17.
2 for 2 dickhead.
I got a new doctor.
Anyhoo, I digress.
So I boxed in the gym 2 afternoons a week in football off season and got to skip it altogether during football season when I got to dog it because of football practice.
From age 10 to age 16 I NEVER got into the ring, even though I was offered literally dozens of junior amateur fghts, I flat-out refused to play the game.
It had nothing to do with fear - shit, I'd already been suspended like 5 times from junior and school rubgy league for "striking" and "attacking the head of another player" and someshit, so I was always spoilong for a fight.
I just wanted to piss Dad off. And still like today, I can one obstinate son of a bitch when I want to be.
At 16 a bunch of my older mates (all my friends were older at high school - I have not one person that was in my year I keep in touch with from high school, never did) started this new fangled karate started by one Mr Bob Jones.... Zen Do Kai.
Hindsight speaking: One big swinging dick iscovery Channel episode that has as much right being called a martial art in the SPIRTUAL sense of the word as a gang fight with pinchbars and baseball bats.
AT the time I LOVED it, more because it pissed the old man to tears !!
Now one advantage of my years of boxing was that I had learned to take a punch, more than one actually, even a lot when it was the older boys in the ring sparring with me. Remember here that I was 220 pounds when I STARTED high school, so i ALWAYS had the older boys sparring with me.
This was a HUGE thing during gradings for belts, when you actually had to fight and/or spar with Sensei's (Teacher) and 2nd Dan black belts (the level above black belt and before teacher) from other Dojo's (schools).
I could take a punch and I could give one back.
And I did.
So I graded VERY well and skipped levels on a number of occasions, so I rose to my black belt within 2 years (which you could do because of the way the thing was structured).
Now Zen Do Kai was structured (allegedly) around the Bushido, or Japanese warrior code, hence, "The Way of The Warrior", and on achieving black belt, you got the "honour" of wearing the Bushido Cross on a necklace around your neck, and you were allowed to get the Zen Do Kai dragon tattoed under your left arm (inside of the bicep).
I wore the chain and fuck you to the tattoo. I was already almost over it all.
Anyway, I was 18, there was a fight, one of my good mates I played football with was in it, I took his back and joined in and we pasted a group of 4 guys, of which, being young, strong and full of cum, we were very proud of.
But my mate fought out of another Dojo under a different Sensei, which was a bad thing.
When I next turned up to train at Dojo, Sensei ripped the Bushido from my neck as punishment for my standing up for a mate, against the rules of the Dojo.
SO I walked, and NEVER looked back.
Let's now skip a couple of years as my life went through an "interesting" phase where there was lots of fighting, bloodshed and mayhem, but no organized training and pic it up when I was back on the right side of the tracks and decided to strat boxing training again
So after I started back on the "straight and narrow" (well mainly) and moved to the Gold Coast for the first time.
I decided to get into shape nand play football again, after a year's lay off, so I figured boxing was a good way to do that.
I found a boxing gym in an old church hall, and off I marched, 4 days a week.
I'd be training there for about 3 months when the trainer cam to me and said, "I'm promoting a State Title fight night in 6 weeks time and need a couple of heavyweights for the undercard, you up for it."
I say no, that I just trained, I don't fight.
He said, "Shame, I paying $1500 for 3 x 1 minute rounds.
I said, "A$nd what time did you want me there?"
So that was the start of a short, but interesting profesiional boxing career. I could literally write in for 10 more pages about them, but I won't.
Suffice to say:
I lost that first fight on points because I lost all ring craft and wanted to street fight. It was apt that my first pro fight was on Saturday 1 April 1989.
That got me mad, and I wanted to prove to myself as much as everyone else that I had it in me.
I trained like a motherfucker. If you can imagine it, I fought my first fight at 120 kilograms (240 pounds), I fought my 2nd at 90 kilograms (just on 200 pounds) ONLY 8 WEEKS LATER.
My 2nd fight won on knockout in the first round.
3rd fight, won by knockout in the 2nd round.
4th fight, the LUCKIEST fight of my career. The bell for the first round sounded and he came out charging at me, really trying to bring it on to me early on. I faded left and he followed with a big right cross, now I knew it was going to hurt, but he was wide open if I dropped the right and hit with a huge uppercut, but I'd have to take the sting of the left. I put everything I had into the uppercut and as it connected flush on his outstretched jaw, and momentarily before his left hit me flush on the nose, I felt the bones in my right hand break from the contact. His left hit me and I staggered and felt the blood in my mouth and it sort of blinded me for a split second (as any nose punch does). When I blinked I saw his eyes. They were rolling in his head. He fell down in a sitting position on his ass, and then rolled over to the side and hit the canvas fully. Out cold. Thank fuck for that, because I had broken 2 bones in my hand (later X-Rays helped in that diagnosis) and they had to cut the glove off my hand after the fight.
5th fight, after a lay off while my hand healed, I was champing at the bit. By this time I thought I was king shit and had a real shot at some title down the track. I fought a first timer (here I was after 4 fights thinking I was a fucking journeyman) and I cleaned him up TKO in he 1st round.
SO now I am strutting around the place, thinking I am the next world heavyweight champion, training like a mofo, NOT drinking or taking drugs at all, and down to like only 10 cigarettes a day. I am the man, no doubt.
Fight 6.
I fought a REAL boxer. And the kid was good (he some time later won the Australasian Heavyweight Championship).
I think the only reason I lasted all 8 rounds was he knocked me into next week in the forst 15 seconds of the fight.
End of the fight they had to slit BOTH my eyelids with a razor blade to let the blood out and allow the eyes to open, I had to have 3 teeth reset by a dentist, my nose was broke (thank god for small noses), BOTH eyebrows were cut and the doctor stapled them, my lips were like Lionel Richies that had been in the sun for 4 days, I pissed blood for 3 days and my chest hurt to breath. My jaw has clicked on both sides ever since that night.
Wisely, I retired.
As a short CuriousToyBoy boxing career aside, as anyone noticed my left ear is all mongy and cauliflowered ?
My trainer used to say I would have been a much better boxer if I has stopped blocking punches with the left side of my head.
And that folks, was the SHORT version.