It’s pretty hard to chew my peanut butter sandwich. One side of my jaw is slightly out of goose. My nose feels as if it should be bleeding, but that’s probably part of my brain haemorrhaging.
“You’ll probably have a bit of a headache in the morning.” said Bruce as I left the gym.
Three one minute rounds may not sound much, but if it’s your first time, as it was mine, then it really takes it out of you. Especially because you forget to breathe for the first twenty explosive seconds of round one. After the initial shock of being twatted in the head a few times, you start to slow down. Luckily, my opponent slowed as well. You can see so much in someone’s eyes, just between the pads of the head-guard.
I remember coming back from a three month break and seeing a shaven-headed monster jumping rope at Bruce’s KO Boxing. I didn’t recognize Jason at first – he had gained 15 pounds since I’d last seen him and become a ripped vision of muscle. He was jumping rope at a ferocious speed, showing coordination and athleticism as he did. He weighed about 20 pounds more than me, and had a few inches on me in height. Jason had been training hard while I had been drinking my way through London, Berlin and Nevada.
“Keep your right hand up when you’re jabbing.” Taylor said to me at the corner during the first break. I had only met him tonight, but after he gave me that advice, he became my instant best friend.
When your opponent comes towards you, his eyes betray his intent. I saw many things in Jason’s eyes tonight that I never had before. Tonight I saw viciousness in his eyes. I saw pain, surprise. I saw determination, and I saw fatigue. I really wonder what he saw in mine. I often wonder how hard my punches are, but you can never really tell. It’s easy to tell when someone hits you how hard it is, but it’s very hard to gauge the other way around.
Jason hit me pretty hard. The bruise at the end of the cartilage which gives my nose its shape bears witness to that. I stood and tried to block his combinations on more than one occasion, and ended up turning away, at the mercy of when he decided to stop launching power punches from unseen shoulders. My level of skill had left me stationary and out of ideas. When he was tired in the third round, he came at me head down, throwing a flurry of punches that kept me moving and unable to take advantage of his lack of observation.
I found it genuinely hard to want to hit him on the rare occasion – perhaps twice in three rounds – that he was relatively defenceless. I found it hard to hit someone who looks in pain. There was no time to think in the furious exchanges of blows, but then a break while we regrouped and thought of a new tactic, or tried to listen to comments from Bruce,
“He doesn’t like your jab as much as you don’t like his. Use it!” or,
“Just like we practised. Jab and move.” or,
“Better have something to do when you get in the pocket.”
Towards the end, his eyes were bloodshot, his nose was trickling blood, and he was struggling to breath past his gumshield. We were both struggling to keep our guards up, and Bruce announced that we had ten seconds left. I was completely out of gas – no fuel for my muscles and no air for my lungs. There was a final flurry, and I felt an overwhelming bond between Jason, Bruce and myself.
“My jaw is screwed.”
“My nose feels broken.”
“Good job boys. You did well.”
“You’ve got a good reach.”
“I don’t think there were more than two bodyshots in the whole thing.”
“You kept blocking all my punches.”
“Maybe with my nose.”
I swapped phone numbers with Jason, and we plan to do it again. Now I’m just going to stuff myself with all the food I daren’t eat before the bout in case I threw up in the ring. I expect my headache to gain potency, my nose to gain volume.