Don't Back Down

Denise and I went to the Cricket Arena Friday night for a boxing match. A series of them, actually, with the main event being Charlotte's own Calvin Brock taking on David Bostice (apparently from Phoenix, in case you were wondering) for the IBA Continental Heavyweight Championship.

First, some warm-up bouts. There were five of them. Three were billed as 8-round contests, one as 6 rounds and one as 4 rounds. Only the last two were correct. The 8-rounders were actually 6 rounds as well. Already I'm thinking that the printers did a horrible job. But I'm still keeping an open mind.

The card started in the middle of the program. I hate it when they don't do things in order. That just screws it all up. But again, there's no telling that the brochure was printed correctly - it's quite possible that it was just printed out-of-order because someone thought that it made sense to do it that way.

Out of these five warm-up fights, at least three of them did not feature the people listed in the brochure. Naturally, the brochure says "fighters subject to change" - which apparently happened. Sometimes the fighter didn't change but their hometown did. Then the people who were correct didn't have the right records.

I can understand if perhaps a fight or two had taken place prior to this one, and it was off by one either way. No big deal. But in one case, the record changed from 31-3 with 23 knockouts to 32-3 with 28 when the fighter was announced (this one at least matched what was in the lineup). How does the guy get 5 KOs in one fight? Another went from a record of 9-49-1, with 2 KOs, to 29-21 with 12 KOs or something.

Worst of all is that these guys with the bad records were really really bad. You've seen Rocky III, where Mick tells Rock that he's been keeping him away from the real contenders, to keep him safe? It's like that. Only these guys they were fighting were horrible. I probably could have taken on some of them (and won).

There was a good warm-up fight where (former?) NBA player Kendall Gill chased his outmatched opponent around the ring. Gill looked to be in very good shape, and if he is seriously embarking on a boxing career, may do well.

So we finally made it to the main event. The first thing that was odd is that the picture of Calvin Brock in the program looks to be about five years old. He's apparently been on the George Foreman workout plan in the interim, and looks, well, different.

I also never saw Brock box previously, even in the Olympics, but I have to assume that he lost a step. Or maybe a few steps. Every once in a while he would unleash a flurry of punches - at least two - and then promptly lean up against the other guy. Meanwhile, the other guy seemed to land a whole lot of blows, but ultimately lost the fight. Perhaps he would have won if he were in Phoenix.

Let's just say that I wasn't really impressed with my first boxing match. I think I'll stick to HBO next time. Or maybe just take in the whole Rocky saga and read about it in the paper the next day.