My Second Fight

For reasons that will become apparent as you read on, this will be a relatively short page. To begin, let's look at the tale of the tape:

Now maybe you're beginning to see why this will be a short story.

First of all, for some unknown reason, the club was filled with lots of young teenage boys this night. I don't know if one of them meant it as a compliment when he asked me, "Mister, did you used to be a boxer?" But that remark sort of undermined whatever false sense of confidence I had before entering the ring.

To get to the bottom line, I lost by a RSC. For those of you as unfamiliar with that terminology as I was until this night, RSC means "Referee Stops Contest." It's not a knockout (KO), nor is it a Technical Knockout (TKO). The referee thought that stopping the fight two minutes into the second round was the prudent thing to do. And I'm inclined to think he got it right.

Not that it was completely one-sided. In fact, I was quicker than Big John and I think I even landed more punches, including what I would have had to call my "best shots." The problem is....when you hit a 270 pound boy (admittedly, not all 270 of those pounds were muscles) with all you've got, it's like throwing tomatoes at a German Panzer; but when a 270 pound boy with 17" biceps hits you, it leaves dents. And he did find his target on a number of occasions. I think that's all I want to say about that.

Like the first sparring match, I was in awe of my own power of concentration. Nothing that I can remember ever focused me as much as this giant standing 6 feet away from me waving his oversized boxing gloves in circles and waiting, just waiting for me to let my guard down. No thoughts (other than survival) entered my mind during those 5 minutes. It's a pretty amazing experience.