Despite what people think, boxing isn't an individual sport. No sport really is if you think of the coaches, trainers and others that one athlete in a so-called "individual sport" needs to have to go from training to competing. Boxing is no different. Whether it's a coach to teach you, sparring partners to spar with, or someone to hold your water bottle and towel during a fight, you need others.
In my third year of being here in Korea, I joined a team -- the UP Boxing Club team. It consisted of a handful of us boxers and all but one of us were professional boxers -- the one amateur boxer was our assistant coach. Over the years, our team has adopted the random new member here and there as well as it's lost members too. In 2010 when Snickers fired his coach at the time, he joined our team. Black Skinny has always been our team captain from the get-go but when he stepped away from the boxing scene after his fight in Japan his title as captain somewhat fell on me. It could have been passed on to Snickers but he had also had stepped out of the boxing scene at the same time Black Skinny did and I had seniority. I was no longer simply training at UP but instead being confided in by my coach and brought into a world of boxing politics that went beyond just our club. I was quick to become the person my coach discussed all our other club boxers with and I was also quick to be held somewhat responsible for them -- took the blame for them too. I was now his new Black Skinny and it was stressful.
Last year -- December 2012 -- when Snickers and I sat down with Junior Mint and told him we were making our new club he instantly turned us from being his prized boxers to the club's outcasts. He told us we'd fail, he told us he could do anything we could do but better and he told us to save our money and go to Canada.
I haven't spoken to him since but I can guarantee he's spoken about us and it hasn't been nice.
I don't think bad of him though I don't understand why he turned on us in such a nasty manner. We never wanted to be competition and we still don't view ourselves as being that. The boxing community in Cheonan is very much close-knit community. Four of the nine boxing clubs are owned and operated by Snickers and my friends, one is Snickers' former coach's club, another is UP, and we're the 9th. Only two boxing clubs we're unfamiliar with.
Our UP team used to be so close, so tight. We were together when Black Skinny got married, when he had his first son and then when he had his second. And even though some of our team members have moved on and stepped out of the pro ring, we're remained very tight... heck, I even married one of my teammates -- Snickers. It's going to take a hell of a lot more than a former coach turning his back and trying to break us down with his verbal slams to split us up though. And though Snickers and I have opened our own club and have broken away from UP, our team is still very much in tact and tonight that proven.
I was sitting at the juice bar counter when first Panty Boy Jr walked in and called my name. And then, as he was gearing up, Black Skinny came into the club. "Let's get training!" Black Skinny yelled and with that I smiled big. Our team may be small but it's mighty. And with three of our four members being former champions and me being the former third ranked female flyweight, our team is staked!!!
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