For anyone who has actually been in the ring share a personal true story!!

He single-handedly tore it down, re-building 'n re-decorating, calling it somethin' else. Sal and the restaurant are long gone, JD.

 

come on over to the training section

 

Great stories JG!!

 

Tell your buds 'bout the thread's new location, JD, or it'll vanish.

 

bump

 

On my way

 

I have notoriously stenchy feet to the point where my shoes were ordered to be put on the outside back poorch by my moms. My family didn't have a lot of money so everything was second hand including my no name runners (which got me mocked in junior high and lacked so much traction I'd be sliding accross the basketball court whenever I came to an abrupt stop) and my boxing shoes were mid 1980's worn out Pony's that no one rocked anymore....this was 95 so my shoes were the butt of many jokes around the gym, I had the crappeist gear in the place and to those that never met me (and to some that did) I was simply known as dirty pony hahaha it was good natured though as I was recognised as a hardworker who did what he was he was told.

I'd been training for 4 months and was ready for my first amateur bout an hour and half away. I got off school and didn't even take my shoes off, I ran upstairs and packed in a hurry, I could hardly contain my excitement. I ran straight out the front door with my bags to a shitty ol K car driven by the dad of one of our clubs fighters and already occupied by 3 other guys from the club travelling to fight. I was very focused, the other guys had all fought before and were clowning around the whole drive there but I was in the zone, this was my first bout and I wasn't gonna **** it up, I was mentally preparing myself for hell if I had to go there.

I get to the event (a shitty old decrepit community center that looked lucky to be still standing). Guess who's up first? Mr no fights with his filthy pony shoes....except one thing- I scrambled through my bag and no shoes, I left them on the backpoorch! In my excitement I ran straight out the front door so I didn't even catch a glance of my shoes....the thought didn't even cross my mind. I was small kid with small feet, no one on my team had shoes that would fit, my trainer went on the hunt but no one from any of the other clubs had my size or cared to help either! Oh ****! The dillema- wear my no traction no name tennis shoes that are slippery enough on pavement let alone a canvasss or miss my first opportunity to fight. I chose the tennis shoes..... lucky for me I was in against another kid in his am debut. I felt like an idiot in there and felt like the whole place was giving me a look like "you gotta be ****ing kidding me, look at this bum!". The kid I was in with seemed preoccupied like he didn't notice and as soon as the bell rang I rushed him and with a little skid forward flicked a stiff jab to his face which clearly bothered him, he back peddled, I liked what I saw in his body language so I gave chase and half sliding I threw a ridiculous looping right from the floor that missed and sent me on my ass, slip. I get up and rush in again at the kid who clearly doesn't like to be hit and doesn't look like he wants to be in any sort of physical confrontation let alone a boxing fight, the kid grabs me and wrestles me to the ground, I couldn't keep on my feet if I was wrestling a baby with that traction. We're seperated and I rush him again, I'm sure this kid is done or quits with the first real blow and .......same scenario but this time the dumb kid actually lifts his leg like a dog taking a **** as if to defend me from getting close and grabs me, I make sure he goes down with me and he topples hard.....then a miracle happened DQ!!!

What an emabrassment at the time, I was mainly relieved to be finished.... I wanted to get the **** out of there and hide my face. I lurked in the back for the rest of the day hoping no one would recognize me and from that day forward I was no longer dirty pony...for at least 2 years after I was dirty glide....the second part of the name changed a few times afterwards over the last few years of my fighting days but they never left dirty out of the moniker even when i got a job and decent gear I was always dirty pony/glide/wings/finger....a combination of dirty and whatever embarassing story was most recent in the memory of my fellow gym grunts.

 

Bump

 

great stories, I'm on graveyard shift, so thanks.

 

Thanks for the heads up JG.

I gotta go out but before hand one of the funniest I've heard from a guy that was ringside near the corner. (In Oz)

He relates; "They (Fighters) just had a toe to toe for the last minute & a half & Fitzy flops onto the stool knackered. His trainer pull his waistband out help him get air, at the same time Fitzy spits his mouthguard out & it goes down his trunks.
The trainer indicates to the 2nd "Do some pearl diving"
The 2nd is fossicking around in his trunks trying to find the guard & looking away embarrassingly. Finally he locates it, gives it w rinse & sticks it back in his gob.
Fitzy loses that round convincingly. I think he fought half of the round with a bone, & couldn't stop winking at the 2nd."

 

I trained for nine months at the Kronk in Detroit before joining the Marine Corps. I grew up in Seattle and Dallas, and hard times brought my Mom & I to Detroit, her hometown. I'm white so I had it pretty rough until I discovered boxing. I was driving down ****** Avenue one day and saw a ghost - just a shadow of a great man I respected tremendously, couldn't possibly be him. Short, grey-haired, with a weathered face and old, badly-worn jogging shoes, I knew I had just seen Emanuel Steward. I pulled over and ran over to the spot where I had seen him standing under a yellow sign and, sure enough, it was Emanuel ****ing Steward! I nearly shat a brick as I shook his hand and he handed me a Kronk shirt and signed a poster for me without me so much as asking for anything. I expressed my disbelief that Kronk had moved to ****** by Ford Rd, and told him I wanted to learn to box. My trainer as standing next to him, and offered to train me on the spot.

The first three weeks, I went through countless drills, and I felt like my body was shutting down. Then I sparred for the first time. I have always had a hard punch, and have always been cocksure. I felt ready. I got in the gym with a big heavyweight and he jabbed the confidence out of me. I brushed him with my glove twice in two rounds. After that, I was paired with an amateur heavyweight, and while he roughed me up at first, I started tagging him, and he quit boxing.

One day, I saw Tommy Hearns shadow boxing, and went up to shake his hand. He watched he shadow boxing and corrected my jab. He helped me work on my stance, and taught me the jab that I use to this day. I don't know if it's his lesson that did it, but I have a fast, hard, stinging jab that I throw from the hitman stance. Tommy ****ing Hearns.

I used to shoot the **** with Steward and get the insider info on Klitschko, the Haye talks (he told me in 2009 that Wlad hated Haye and would "destroy him" if they fought,) why Jermain Taylor went to **** ("He cares more about the titty bars than he does about training!") et cetera.

Andy Lee taught me how to stay loose and not expend energy needlessly.

I sparred dozens of rounds with K9 Bundrage. He probably broke my nose three times. I loved sparring with K9, he wouldn't handle me with kid gloves, but he didn't just thrash on me viciously. He'd do just enough to tax that ass, without just discouraging you. If you turned up the heat, he would, too. If you wanted to box all slick and stick-and-move, he would do so with you.

One day in sparring, I was going at it hard with K9, and I was tiring badly but getting very frustrated as I had a lot of trouble hitting him that day. I remember chasing him to the ropes, tucking my head down, and unleashing a big left hook. I didn't see where it hit, but I felt my hand hurt, and thought I had hit him square in the chest. I raise my head to see him shaken. Afterward, for weeks, he would tell people that I had whollop and hit him with the best left hook he'd ever taken, pro's or amateurs. I have no idea how true that was, but I'll never forget it.

Caveman Lee, the guy who knocked out John LoCicero in perhaps the most exciting slugfest ever, who later fought Marvin Hagler for the title, used to train me and shoot the **** with me.

My main sparring partner was an inch taller than me at 6'1, a natural middleweight who ran a 10.8 100 meter dash and was a superb natural athlete. He was always faster, but I had such heavy hands and could be very savvy at times. One day, he was getting the better of me, got me on the ropes where I went into my shell, and opened up with combinations, flashing speed. I ate up all his shots as I usually did, blocking them with my forearms and elbows, crouched down, and instinctively shot a straight right - a real "six-inch punch" - that hit him hard, square in the solar plexus. By the time I came out of my shell to see what had happened, he was lying on the ground, sucking air. He was out for about a minute, and our coach told me, "If you had just hit him harder, he wouldn't be able to do anything today." The next day, with my new confidence, sparring was progressing well, when he fainted to my head and I brought my hands up to shoot down the middle. He bent a knee and shot a righthand, a sort of hook-uppercut, landing square on the solar plexus! Not even a very hard shot, but right on the button! I was done. Before I hit the ground, my mouthpiece was out and I was sucking air. atsch

I joined the Marine Corps, and ended my boxing career before it began, but I loved being in the ring, and I still daydream about getting back into it on the daily. I miss boxing more than anything, and wish I had trained harder back in the day. In better shape as a Marine, I trained with a kid who is on the Marine Corps boxing team now. I always got the better of him in sparring. I have had two friends on the boxing team, both have encouraged me to get on the team, but I'm married now and I don't know if my heart's in it anymore. What I know is that I had a great jab that hurt people, a left hook that would sometimes land like a bomb, a hard chin, good natural defensive instincts, footwork, and heart.

 

Sorry... not read the rest of the thread... but this made me lose it! Images of a boxer 'dropping bombs' on his opponent.... :rofl

 

Wonderful, vivid stories, s. Thanks for jumpin' in. SEMPER FI

 

Hilarious, R. The mental picture's a crack-up.