Let's Get Ready to RUMBLE... Saturday, July 17

With the fights not starting till 6pm and Snickers not scheduled to fight until about 8pm, the day consisted of a lot of waiting and a lot of silence. Fight day is always intense I understood Snickers’ need to use his day to mentally prepare for the game, so I stuck to swimming and running to preoccupy myself while Snickers sat on the floor of our room doing some serious thinking. We knew the fight would be in a soccer stadium but we all thought it rather strange. Little did we know that the space of the massive soccer stadium wouldn’t in fact be enough to house the crowd that would be coming out.

They opened up the stadium back doors and in we drove like super stars. The driver drove us right on to the soccer field and to a tent they had sent up for us.

I let Junior Mint and Snickers have their private time together in the tent while I went out and roamed about among the crowd. I was the only foreigner there and boy did my blond hair ever turn heads… hahaha. The promoter walked along with me, as a kind of bodyguard, and then I was later joined by Snickers’ opponent’s boxing club manager, Ala. I had told Ala that I wanted to buy a shirt with his boxing club’s name on it for Snickers as a kind of souvenior. He took me over to where they were being sold, by a side entrance gate, but I was quick to buy one and get out of there because of the scene at play.

You had two options for watching the fights, buy a ticket or grab a free seat in the stands. Tickets were easy to come by because they were being sold practically everywhere but seats were limited. People were climbing the walls, pushing each other, and security had to resort to throwing rocks at some to control them. It was intense and honestly I felt rather scared.

While Junior Mint wrapped Snickers’ hands, I had to go and monitor the hand wrapping of his opponent – fight rule they had in place. It was kind of strange sitting beside Snickers’ opponent (Jason Pagara). Jason doesn’t speak English but his teammate did so we chatted while he worked away. Jason’s boxing club is called Ala Boxing and apparently it’s the biggest and most notorious clubs in the Philippines. There’s two of them actually. All week leading up to the fight, everywhere I went it seemed like an Ala Boxing Club member with their professionally designed pants, t-shirts, and track suits were everywhere.

It wasn’t until close to 9pm that they actually called Snickers into the ring. By then the crowd was bursting at the seams, so we had quite a crazy walk up to the ring. People lined the tight path they had marked off for the boxers.

An estimated 15,000 people were in attendance!!!

When we reached the ring, Junior Mint and Snickers stepped into it while I prepared the water bottles, ice pack and whatnot. The ring elevated a good 3-4 feet and though it was late, it was still super hot and bright because of the massive clusters of stage lights they had set up.

ROUND ONE
Snickers stood quite taller than Jason and it was clear that he had regained a lot of the weight he had dropped for weigh-in. My whole body tensed up as I watched from ringside as Snickers dominated Jason and knocked him around the ring.

ROUND TWO
I wasn’t sure if it was because of the fact that Jason was shorter than Snickers or if it was done intentionally, but head-butting happened way too much in this round and the ref didn’t seem to care to call it. I’m sure he probably got points docked off because of it but with just under 10 seconds left to the round, everyone in the crowd got loud when the ring doctor stepped in. Snickers stepped back and I was shocked to see so much blood running down his face. Both his eyebrows had been cut but with the added excess sweat it made for quite a bloody sight.

The doctor called the fight. The cuts were too deep.

It didn’t hit us until we arrived back at the tent that the fight we all had anticipating Snickers to clearly dominate and take had just ended. On the way back to the ring I was stopped by numerous people, including an official, the promoter, other professional boxers, and even crowd members, who all wanted to tell me that Snickers would have won had he not been injured. I knew he would have won. He should have won, and he would have won, but he didn’t, and now I was faced with the struggle of trying to find out what exactly to say to him once we got back to our prep tent.

Upon arriving back at the tent, people knew to give us some privacy. Snickers sat down and blurted out, “How can I become a world champion if I lose a game?!” to which I didn’t know what to say but to bury his head in my shirt. He didn’t cry or anything and actually he seemed to take the loss quite well but I was crushed.

This was Snickers’ first fight since his beloved grandfather died, consequently, it marked the first fight without him in the crowd. Snickers had told me earlier that he wanted to use his game win money to buy his grandfather a grave stone.

One of the other Filipino boxing clubs that had a boxer fighting tonight had taken a big liking to Snickers and I. We had joked around with one of them earlier, telling him that his face had a shocking resemblance to Snickers’ best friend. I felt relieved to see him and his crew come by our tent to encourage Snickers and to hang out. Actually, a lot of people came by to give their regards. It was rather overbearing the crowd that bombarded the sides of our tent but you couldn’t help but feel happy at the sight.

Regardless of our heartbreak, the tournament went on. Big Yoo lost his fight, fireworks went off and the so-called “Philiippines vs. South Korea” tournament had finished and the Philippines had won. We then all loaded up into an ambulance and were taken to a local hospital where Snickers then got nine stitches.

I had to buy Snickers’ the prescribed medicine, as expected but, and this was very strange, I also had to go and buy replacement medicine for stuff the doctor had used to patch him up. The driver and I jumped into the van and drove around looking for the stuff but because it was so late we gave up and decided it best we search it out in the morning.

We all arrived back at the hotel just short of midnight but very hungry. Big Yoo’s coach insisted on searching out Korean food again. They had expected me to go with them and I really wanted to go, for Snickers’ sake, but I had clearly had enough of this idiot-and-a-half. I was itching to yell “can’t this for once not be about you?!” but instead only mustarded up saying “I’m tired". I was tired of him but I left that part out, they all knew it and agreed with me on it though.

I sat quietly in the hotel lobby waiting for them to return but before they did Jason and his crew came in. They hadn’t noticed me in the corner but I watched as Jason sat down and put his face in his hands. I gave a little cough to let him know I was there and then he got up and left. “Jason, okay?” I asked. His look said it all, he was in pain.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
What is the right thing to say?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better.
-- Wendell Phillips