Fight Night

Took these two guys to the fight the other night. It was a club fight held at a pretty upscale country club. The ring was set up in the maintenance building which explains the tools hanging on the wall behind the guys in the photo. Both guys lost their fights - one by a split decision, the other by just being out-classed by his opponent. Both guys fought extremely well and it was a valuable learning experience for both of them. Both of their opponents were a better caliber of fighter than what they are used to dealing with at most of the club shows we go to.

All of the bouts were good, with most of them being close decisions. I've taken fighters to a couple of shows with the same group of officials and I've been impressed with them at all of the shows. The scoring has always been good and the referees do a real nice job of controlling the action in the ring. The ref gave our young guy a standing eight count in the first round. I didn't see anything that warranted that but he told the fighter that it wouldn't count against his score. He came over to check on him between rounds as well. Our guy was definitely outclassed but he was protecting himself and landing some shots, so he wasn't getting hurt. After the fight we found out his opponent had 83 previous fights and I'm sure the ref had been involved in at least some of those. Since it was just a club fight rather than a tournament, I think the ref was just looking out for our guy. Nice to see.

My running buddy has got another fight lined up for the guys in September. I'm hoping she can get one of the other guys to help her in the corner. I'll be happy to help her if that's not the case but I'm trying to keep my involvement to a minimum. It's nice that she's willing to step up and take a few of these guys to events, though. The guys need more action, especially against some quality opponents like the other night. We're going to try and get a group run in once a week at least until the weather starts getting bad and the days get shorter.