It's a hard scene to accept as reality when you see someone you've always held up on a pedestal fall and that's what happened today. Black Skinny fell. It was broad casted all over SBS ESPN Sports and the crowd gasped as crashed to the ring floor for a third time. Our long time reining champion -- my former teammate and team leader, the one who was always the one to keep our spirits up with his assumed wins -- had fallen.
My hand hurt from clenching Snickers' leg through the fight and I felt so nervous for him. The second time he went down, you could just see it in his eyes -- he didn't want to be there and he really shouldn't have been there. Both Snickers and I questioned why it was that he had taken this fight and if this was his choosing or Junior Mint's pushing. Perhaps he chose to do it for Junior Mint, I can understand that. I can understand wanting to do something, anything, for someone you care about but I honestly don't feel this was the case. It's been over two years since his last fight. Two years out of the ring is huge, add the weight of his last fights. and well, Junior Mint shouldn't have put him in the ring with a boxer whose last four fights -- only four fights -- have all be knockouts. It was a strange feeling, not knowing what to say to him in the change room after, but what could you say. You couldn't say it was ok or better luck next time because it wasn't ok, I don't believe in luck and I don't know if he's interested in another time. Maybe this was his last fight, I don't know, but all I do know is that I wasn't the only one who didn't know what to say to him after. I decided to just give him some privacy but I stuck my head into his change room to see how he was. He sat there motionless, with his head tilted back against the walls and his shoulders slouched forward.
There were other fights on today's fight card -- 8 in total -- but I was only interested in two of them. There were two championship titles on the fight card and I knew the fighters fighting in both bouts. Black Skinny's opponent had both my promoter and my fellow Canadian boxer friend acting as corner help but there were no hard feelings there. It was only fair and right that they helped their boxer. Congrats to them for winning that bout.
The next fight of interest to me was that of Jujeath's fight -- Jujeath against Park Ji Hyun. I knew it'd be a close fight and an action packed one too but with each round I watched I got more and more angry at KBC. I've been dealing with KBC exactly 6 years now to the day and their shady politics and sketchy rule bending is just too much. Not to discredit Park Ji Hyun because she's an amazingly talented female boxer but come on. I have a big issue with the fact that KBC refuses to send certain boxers of theirs outside of Korea. A few of us talked about this today, after the fights, and we all agreed that KBC definitely tries to protect certain fighters. I can name a two female fighters off the top of my head who have both refused numerous international fights and hold championship status in Korea.
They may be Korean champion boxers -- champions IN Korea -- but I have a problem with calling them WORLD champions if they've yet to even fight outside of Korea, away from all the comforts and security KBC gives them.
Today I watched as Jujeath fought Ji Hyun for a second fight but I'd love to see a third fight between these two occur but outside of Korea. It doesn't have to in Jujeath's home country of The Phillippines, it can be in a middle country, but I think it'd be a true test to Ji Hyun's strength as a supposed world champion. Ji Hyun has defended her title 14 times and that's awesome but she's never once stepped out of Korea to fight and as a world champion I think that's discredited her image and reputation as a boxer. That's where Jujeath and other boxers traveling to Korea have always got my respect. It's a whole different experience, going into an opponent's country and fighting on behalf of yours, I know because I went to Japan and fought. There's a whole other set of issues and things to wrap your head around and go against that definitely aren't present when you fight in your home country. But the experience and test of mental strength was something I never would have acquired if I hadn't gone -- it was definitely worth the experience. Fighting in Japan seemed to be more of an outside-of-the-ring, inside-my-head kind of fight than a inside-the-ring fight but with Korea keeping their fighters home, they're robbing their fighters of these valuable experiences and opportunities.
Is KBC that overprotective or are they scared and just believe their fighters aren't good enough. Interesting.
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