SPARRING WITH A PROFESSIONAL BOXER

[♔Chello]

SPARRING WITH A PROFESSIONAL BOXER

This is a story from my time in the military; 1981.
At the recruit school I met a professional boxer, and he was the district champion in his weight class, which was lightweight.

He was housed in the same barracks as me, and there was actually another professional boxer there, who was the district champion in another county.
The two did not get along well; the boxer from the other county tried at every opportunity to show that he was the best, and challenged the other to an illegal boxing match.

He was 20 kg heavier, so it was an unfair match.
The match began, and the heavier one threw series of punches that never hit, because the lighter one was too fast for him.

This continued round after round, until the heavier one began to have trouble staying on his feet.
Then the lighter one began to systematically bombard him with punches that all landed, until he was knocked to the floor and had to realize that he had lost.
I learned a lot from studying them.

Later, my fellow boxer wanted me to spar with him, because he needed a sparring partner.
I reluctantly agreed, because I had no boxing experience.
He replied that it would probably go well, because I had good reflexes.

We started sparring, and I had more than enough work to avoid his punches, but I remembered the match I had seen, and I was also aware that I would most likely have even bigger problems, because I was about 25 kg heavier and inexperienced.

After several such rounds, he landed a punch in an unguarded moment that shook me, but I reacted instinctively and immediately threw a quick (and hard) punch, which knocked him straight to the floor.
He had great difficulty getting back up, but grinned broadly, because this was the first time anyone had managed to knock him to the floor..!

After this we became very good friends, and he insisted that I had good chances of becoming a really good boxer, because I had both good reflexes, the ability to read the opponent and a good punch.

He told the other boxer about the episode - "Chello knocked me to the floor - you couldn't do that..!", who after this disliked me greatly, but he was careful not to do anything more than show it.