Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Fan-fiction

WIP  Thanks for reading!  ☺
1
I hadn’t been training for the sport of boxing that long, about three weeks. In the Front Street Boxing Gym, a man once told me a saying. He said, “If you hit the heavy bag long enough, eventually, you’ll want to get inside the ring and put your boxing training to use.” Boy, was he right. After weeks of having no trainer, I thought hitting the heavy bag became useless. I wanted to show off to people in the gym that evening that I had the heart. For weeks, I heard that an amateur boxer wanted to humiliate me. So, I’ve asked the gym owner, even though I didn’t have a trainer, could I try out for the upcoming novice boxer tournament for a championship bout. He laughed and said okay and to make sure I got registered. 
As a nineteen-year-old, I attended a night school program before going to the gym. Money was hard to come by. I needed a job but couldn’t find a way to fit working into my schedule, so I relied on support from my mom.
That evening, not having no trainer after coming from a night school program, the gym owner had to work my corner, and a male teen that had to help me lace up my gloves. He was the one that told me about the amateur boxer’s comments. He encouraged to turn our upcoming sparring session into a fight. “Yo! You need-ta-trash him dawg. He talk all that shit bout chu.”
I had no boxing experience, nor did I train properly for a sparring session in the first place, but I had anger issues with me and wanted to have a future. Before we’d get into the ring, I had to figure out a way to focus. My mind wasn’t there thinking about the kiss Lili had given me. She was a classmate that got me caught up in having feelings. That created an automatic distraction. 
Wearing the gym’s stinky headgear and having on a foul protector wrapped around my waist felt uncomfortable. I wished I could have done without it. The gym owner walked over to me after he saw me ready. He shook his head. “Very foolish. You sure you wanna go through with this?”
“It’s my life, man. I’m not backing down like some chump. All I need is a mouth piece,” I said, having my arms at my side. The gym owner gave me a brand-new mouthpiece. I didn’t want to complain about how it fitted, so I made my way to the ring. My sparring opponent’s trainer gave me a look as if I didn’t pose any threat to his trainee. I wanted to show them. The gym owner stood on the apron resting his arms on the ropes looking at me in humor. “I got this,” I said, talking through my mouthpiece as my words sounded muffled. 
“He’s ready. I say we wait for the next timer, then they can go,” the gym owner said, communicating with my sparring opponent’s trainer. The amateur boxer looked confident standing across from me. I gave him a look as if I didn’t care—and I didn’t. Blasé, blasé. I approached everything in life with attitude. I gave him a look of fury as if I wanted to engage in a fight as if we were on the street. Before the gym timer turned green, the gym owner saw me looking outside the ring. He gritted his teeth. “You need to focus. Don’t worry bout nothin’ else. Don’t focus on what’s outside.” 
When I looked outside the ring, my nerves jumped out after seeing a former heavyweight champion Andre Bishop. I had an audience watching me. Bishop retired from the sport of boxing. It was the second time I saw him. He had on a serious expression. He policed the heck out of me. The timer goes off, my sparring opponent started inching towards me in an orthodox boxer’s stance, meaning he led with his left leg and jabbed with his left. I fought southpaw, even though, I was right-handed. I preferred fighting like a left-handed person so that I could’ve drawn more power with my jabs. I did know how to cover up, using my forearms, but that wasn’t enough. I got caught with a quick jab on the forehead. He had the speed advantage. The audience, the gym owner, and my sparring opponent’s trainer were yelling at the top of their lungs. 
“That’s it! Use that jab, make it crisp,” my sparring opponent’s trainer said. My headgear ate the first punch as that made me dizzy. 
I turned around and looked at the gym owner and he got mad. “Focus,” he said. “You wanted this.” After he said that, I had to get it together and rely on using my footwork. Since we sparred in different stances and my lack of boxing experience, my feet kept stepping on his. That created a semi-problem for him. He had it out for me. I stepped on his foot and threw wild hooks catching him with one of them. That indeed turned things into a fight. We swung hard. He made my nose bleed with a straight punch that I didn’t have time to block. The timer goes off and I’m losing stamina. I had no cardio. “Get it together young man. Take a deep breath,” the gym owner said. “You need to focus on what’s in the ring.” We ended up doing two rounds of sparring. 
The last round, my sparring opponent took full advantage of the opportunity that I had no speed behind my punches. He taunted me with his mouthpiece and hit me with a one-two jab and straight. I didn’t fall to the canvas, I just wanted to show the heart. So, I acted like the punches had no effect. I kept stepping on his feet. I caught him with a few good clean shots. During the closing seconds, he cornered me with combinations catching me with a punch to the core. 
I took a knee near the ropes and heard the timer. I saw Bishop nodding his head. “Good job young man. Whatever was on your mind in the early going, you pulled through and showed a tremendous heart,” he said. 
I saw my sparring opponent outside the ring sticking his middle finger up at me. “He kept stepping on my foot,” was all I heard him saying about me. The gym owner had went back to his office with no comments. 
Bishop was the only person to convince me I had a chance in boxing. I got up off the canvas feeling hurt. I didn’t know which way to go without having no pains. I felt embarrassed. I lived in the same neighborhood as the boxing gym and so did some people in the audience.