The Middle School Kiddies Bust out the Punches... Saturday, September 25

Schedule for today:
6am Do my HIIT running.
8am Meet with Newbie for my personal training session with him.
10am Go watch the amateur boxing tournament.
10pm Boxing and some weight training.

Today's focus was on the amateur boxing tournament that two of my UP Boxing Club Middle School Kiddies and one High School Kiddie were participating in. The tournament was being held in Kongju, the same city I had just traveled out to yesterday. Snickers and I arrived early so that we could help out in any way needed. Didn't quite expect "helping out" to include doing a pad work demonstration in front of the amateur boxers though.

You just gotta love watching the amateur fights, especially tournaments like these where all the amateur boxers are middle school and high school students. They're always so full of energy and many of them come with their little groupies -- screaming girls with their signs and groups of boys loudly chanting together.

Today there was three UP Boxing Club amateur boxers fighting but another two fighters from Cheonan. Apparently Snickers and I were the only Cheonan fans, or at least the only ones willing to compete with the opposition's chanting crowd. Every time they yelled, we yelled but louder.

Two Middle School Kiddies that I favor were both having their debut fights today, so I had been looking forward to today for awhile now. Before the tournament started, I gave them both a good whack on the bum, told them "kill him", and then took my seat. One by one they called our Cheonan fighters into the ring for their bout. My heart was beating so fast and with every punch they gave I yelled to them, telling them to do it again or to try this or that combination. It was exciting. The rush of their debut game reminded me of my first.

The excitement, however, got to our first UP amateur boxer sent in the ring to fight. In the last round (third round) he threw his arms up, bent over, struggled to shake out his mouthpiece, and then puked in the middle of the ring. His nerves had got the best of him. I stood up, scared that he was choking on the puke. He didn't look like he wanted to continue but then both Junior Mint and I yelled at him, telling him to continue on. The fight was clearly his for the taking, that is as long as he finished it. And finish it was exactly what he did and win it was also what he did.

What a champ!!!

The second UP amateur boxer, a real favorite of mine and Snickers, was a shy little boy who looks more scared than anything when he trains. He's just too cute... "he's too cute to be a boxer" I told Snickers. And it's true, the kid is so adorable and I hated seeing that other kid rough his face up but I was so proud when he won the fight 4-0.

I was sure to cheer on all the Cheonan boxers. There was this one Cheonan kid, Min Young, who won in the second round when his opponent's coach threw in the towel, forfeiting the fight. Min Young won with a wicked score of 11-0!!!

The refs were pretty biased, so Snickers and I ended up yelling more at the ref than cheering on the Cheonan boxer in one particular fight. The ref was being so anal, calling everything and anything the Cheonan boxer was doing wrong but totally ignored the opposition's open punches, punches to the back of the head, and head locks. "Come on!" I yelled out. "This isn't UFC. Let's see some boxing" I added. The opponent was a pretty dirty fighter, resorting to dropping to his knees every time the Cheonan boxer had him in the corner and whenever he couldn't defend himself. Despite all the cheap calls on the refs behalf and all the cheap dirty shots from the opponent, the Cheonan boxer won.

Whenever Snickers and I watch boxing, UFC, K1, or any other kind of fighting sport, whether it's live or on TV we always get so into it. We pick who we want to win and then cheer them on as if the world depended on it... trust me, ask my neighbors they can vouch this to be true. We didn't get to see the last UP amateur fight because we had to race home for the delivery man, but before we left a couple of people stopped to talk to us. A couple of guys recognized who I was, another family recognized us from one of the shows we did, but the funniest was when one mother asked me how old my son was. She had mistook one of the UP Middle School Kiddies as being my son... hahaha. I didn't know whether to be insulted that she'd think I'm old enough to have a middle school aged kid or flattered that she mistook my passion and focus on the game as being family related. Regardless, I amused myself by telling her that he's 12, "and he's the best!!!" I added.

Today was a very successful for Cheonan boxers... congrats to all... especially my two Middle School Kiddies who proved so many people wrong. They may be super adorable but look out, in the ring they're nothing close to cute.

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Do I look like I could be the mother of a middle school kid?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
Boxing is the toughest and loneliest sport in the world.
-- Frank Bruno