The hard truth about my fight career, is basically I hated it. Growing up as a teenager I always had a knot in my stomach because there was always a fight coming up, whether that meant this coming weekend, or next month, there was always a fucking fight coming up and I hated it.Why did I fight so much if I really hated it you may ask. and I have to search very deep to come up with the answer, and the only one I can come up with is I always thought I was supposed to. I never really had a direction, or a passion, or even a goal, I just always thought that I was supposed to be a fighter.
I fought in karate tournaments, amateur and professional boxing, professional kickboxing, I even fought in a few no holds barred fights. I think I get honestly consider myself a prizefighter, but I never really had a direction. I think it all started because where I grew up being tough, and able to fight was more important than being good-looking, smart, or even rich. And looking the way I did, I knew that I had to be either extra tough, or everybody’s bitch, I chose being tough. looking back at it now, it was definitely the harder road, but I think it was the best choice I could’ve made under the circumstances.Always having a fight coming up depressed me, and made me anxious. My mother thought I had an ulcer it took me to the doctor because my stomach was always in knots. I felt very loved at home, and I think my divorced parents were both great, but outside of the home, I felt like I always had to put on an act, I always had to be the tough guy. I could say was phony, and it was an act, but since I was winning the state Golden gloves as a sophomore in high school, I was turning that act into a reality of who I really was. Even though I didn’t feel like my aura fit me, I kept it going, and everybody bought it.
Being the martial arts guy, and the Golden gloves champion, I got a lot of respect from my peers in my neighborhood, and at my school. Even my teachers showed me the respect that the star quarterback for the high school football team would get because I was always in the newspaper. Even though I was the skinny white kid with long blonde hair, I walked around my high school like the big tough guy, I always felt it was an act, but everybody bought it, even the biggest toughest guys at my school, and in my neighborhood. I tried to never be a bully, but I got into plenty of scraps. It was usually with bigger guys that went from my neighborhood that didn’t like the fact that I would not avert my gaze when they were looking at me. Almost all of my fights would start with “what the fuck are you looking at Haole you want to fight”, and I would always say “let’s go”.
Training and sparring for every fight was monotonous, and painful, but I took it to the extreme out of fear, Because losing a fight unlike any other sport is much harder mentally as well as physically, because it seems to take, and question your manhood. That’s a lot to go through as a teenager. But I think the good outweighed the bad, because I got the kind of respect that I never would’ve gotten if I had not become a sport fighter.I think the worst part of every fight was sitting in the dressing room warming up, the mind plays such tricks on you, and it’s so hard to psych yourself up to walk into a ring and defend yourself against someone who is trying to knock you out in front of hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. It’s like putting yourself, your skills, and your Manhood under a microscope. That’s pretty heavy for a teenager, or even a grown man for that matter. Sparring in the gym, even with my own teammates in the early days, and even when I was on the army boxing team, or as a professional fighting for the Muhammad Ali boxing team, was pretty much as brutal as any fight. There is a lot of macho egos in fighters, and even when your sparring, it turns into a fight more than it didn’t. If you think of it if two guys are runners and they were competing against each other, they both want to win so they both going to run as fast as they can, spiring is not much different, is soon as your “partner“ lands a good shot, you have to land one back and nine out of 10 times it’s going to end up like a real fight.
I’m not fighting anymore, and I very seldom spar, and there’s nothing I miss about the fight game. I do not miss the crowds, I do not miss training for my fights, and I definitely do not miss fighting. And it’s weird to me, because most of my fighters absolutely love every aspect of the sport. They love training, they’re very relaxed and even in good spirits in the dressing room, and they seem to really enjoy fighting, I do not understand that, but it makes me very happy to help people pursue their passion and happiness.
One crazy thing is I never had any goals to be a champion, I want a few state titles as an amateur, and even a North American and a world title as a kickboxer, but that was never a goal of mine. I just always thought because I thought that’s what I was supposed to be doing.