John Scully, an old fight buddy of mine, recently conducted a survey for his up and coming book which will share his war-stories as a boxer. Scully, a.k.a. "Ice"  wanted to know the thoughts & experiences fighters endure which separate the REAL fight from a gym workout or sparring session. 

Scully's primary objective is to provide for those who have never participated in a sanctioned boxing match uncharted insight into the mind of a competitive fighter.

It didn't take long to re-live a semblance of the heightened adrenaline rush that whips over all fighters the closer we get to hearing the bell ring for round 1.  Though recalling this adrenaline rush is major - there are also loads of "semi-conscience" behaviors which fighters succumb to before competitive bouts which are absent from gym workouts - "zoned out" head bobbing, sitting backwards in a chair while hands are being "gauzed" by their trainers, being extra concerned about the padding in the boots and snugness of the headgear, all while wearing a thick air of cocky confidence, only name a few.

Yet through 100+ bouts as a competitive amateur boxer, personal experience has proven that the most profound difference between a gym workout and the real fight is the always unbefitting and highly undesirable 10 oz. CRUNCH. 

Gym fighters who relegate their 16 oz. gym wars to supervised sparring sessions never know it and backyard schoolboys encompassed in a neighborhood grudge-match with elastic, fluffed-up miniature pillows on their hands can't touch it. 

There is just something about that initial JOLT (or wake-up call) of being hammered by an opponent's clinched fist, wrapped tightly by a skin-tight 10 oz. boxing glove that screams, "we ain't in the gym anymore!!"

Ricky Ray Taylor

6-11-2007