I have finished my
training with a fight last night and now will fly out to Nepal to start the
next adventure- Trekking Mt Everest. I will go to around 6000 meters (just
above Base Camp) which should take me a total of about 3 weeks… More on that
later
It has been a strange few weeks. I stacked my scooter about
a fortnight ago when riding up to Phuket town. A women on a bike came out a
side street without looking and forced me to lay the bike down. After tumbling
down the road I ended up with a nice bit of gravel rash, a few bumps and a
broken laptop which was in my backpack.
This made training difficult until the wounds healed, difficult
for me as hitting bags or pads with large bits of skin missing off your feet
hurts and means they don’t heal. Ronee my trainer felt no discomfort watching
it as he reminded me laughing numerous times each day.
It was a quiet New Years Eve as I trained until 8pm and then
went home for dinner. I stayed up to see the fireworks but alas didn’t even
have a solitary drink to welcome the new year.
5.30am New Years day is a time I have seen before but never sober and
never in training gear running 10kms before a 3 hour workout. The camp closed for 3 days over New Year for
everyone except 3 of us with fights coming up. Tuk the camp manager took over
my training to get me ready for the final leg. It was brutal, the sessions went
longer and longer and but I knew I was getting stronger.
I tried asking Ronee and Hehm a few times about my opponent
but they wouldn’t tell me anything just to keep training hard. I guess the idea
being that they would train me for the fight and probably wanted to keep my
head clear…nothing hard about that
During week the fight posters came out and were plastered
around Phuket, not a good photo of me (I looked crossed eyed). The fight was
scheduled for Friday night in Bangla Stadium, Patong which is the biggest
stadium in Phuket.
I started carb loading two days before the fight and
basically just chilling and letting the muscles and joints heal up from training
before the big day. On fight day I spent a few hours at the beach to relax and
instead managed to get sunburnt…iggit.
I went to the stadium with Tuk in his pimped out Escalade
fitted with disco lights and 1000w speakers. When I arrived at the stadium I
find some 50 plus supporters from the camp and neighborhood, including the
manager of my apartment, the guy I rented my scooter from and the lady from a
nearby restaurant. The Stadium is a sellout and the queue to get in runs around
the corner. As I walked in I notice I am top billing scheduled for the 9th
and final fight of the night…This is the last thing I wanted.
I thought I had the nerves under control but once I realize
the amount of people here to watch me the butterflies start and having to wait
for 8 other fights first doesn’t help. I wanted to fight early on the card so I
can have a beer while watching the rest. It takes about 2 hours for all the
other fights to complete. Time which I spend in the locker room watching them
on TV and do some stretching. I then get my hands tapped. They look and feel
like I have knuckled-dusters on as in Muay Thai it is standard to created hard
taped knuckles which you then slip into these tiny 8oz gloves ( I spar in 18oz
gloves so I don’t hurt people). The
younger guys in the fight camp are my entourage, they cover me in Thai boxer
liniment (like deep heat) and help with stretching in warming up. This is where one of them makes a small mistake.
Pom is about 10 years old and while he is chatting with me he lets slip that my
opponent fought professional in Bangkok
for 10 years and has had hundreds of fights.
Damn that is a lot more experience than I expected. Pom must see it on
my face and says “don’t worry he lost Lumpinee belt” great my opponent had a Thailand title fight
in the past….
As I make my way
down to the ring I again see the size of the crowd and I start to steal myself
that I don’t give a crap about his experience as I trained hard for this and I
can win.
I did a condensed
version of the Wai Kru as the crowd had already seen this 8 times that night
and I just wanted to get to fighting and winning… When I finish the crowd
starts with “aussie aussie aussie oi oi oi” which I enjoyed.
I don’t intend doing
a round by round of the fight as a video is coming out. Short to say that while
I won I was somewhat disappointed with my performance. Nerves got to me and my
form was poor. I let my head go down a number of times and could have gotten
knocked out by a knee to the head. My clinch should have been stronger and my hand
combinations were poor. But I knocked him out and took the win so I am stoked
about that. I knew my first pro fight would be a tough affair but damn that was
hard work.
My body took a few
good shots and I woke today with good bruising and plenty of swelling. It will
be soft food for today as the jaw is sore, the legs are battered and the ribs
are bruised and tender.
I achieved all of my
goals and in fact surpassed a few. I trained like a Thai, with the Thai’s in
Thailand. I got fit and lost weight to get down to cruiser weight division. I
fought a far more experienced (but out of shape) opponent who I over came to
collect a win. I need to keep going with
my training and continue to drop more weight, perhaps a long walk up a steep
hill will help
I have a few days
off now before the next adventure.
On the 12th
January I fly from Bangkok to Nepal (via India) and will spend 3 weeks in the
Himalayas where I will climb Mount Everest to approx 6000 meters (the peak is
just over 8000). I will trek to Everest Base Camp and continue on to Kala
Pattar peak before trekking back to Kathmandu.
The next blog will be about a walk up a
mountain.
