Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting!

The day has arrived... it's been three months in coming and one hell of a journey, and I can honestly say I will never be the same again after this! But before I go into the ring, and whether I win or lose, I want to shout out some thanks to those who made this all possible... 

That was then...

Firstly, to Cameron "Double-Trouble" Fraser-Shaw, who hastily arranged a ticket for me to go and watch him in action last October. Little did he know at the time the chain reaction that would have! And for all the advice and support he has given me since then - thank you, brother!


Secondly, to Kumar from SSE Marine Logistics, whose table it was I found myself sitting on, and who - on a whim - bid in the auction for the spot on the squad I now occupy. He welcomed me like a friend that night, and his generosity was that big push I needed to set me on this path. You are a true gentleman, Kumar, and I look forward to a dram or two of Scotch with you soon!

Next, to the whole team at Vanda Boxing who put themselves out there organising the event - Stephen and Philip in particular for putting up with my barrage of emails! And of course, the coaches... they put us through hell at times, but never once did they ever let me feel like I couldn't make it. Alexis especially, thank you for always seeming to have a positive comment just when I needed it!

...and this is now!

All my friends and family who have supported me, either by being there tonight, by donating to the charity, or just giving me your best wishes. I know that my doing this surprised most (if not all) of you, and there has been a lot of piss taking (a LOT!), but you've all had my back and kept encouraging me. Especially thanks to Molly's Malone's Table 13 crowd, for all the banter and often conflicting advice!!


My beautiful wife Joanna, who responded to my enrolement with a raised eyebrow, but who has been an absolute rock in encouraging me and supporting me (except when leaving huge amounts of chocolate in the fridge). And of course, my boys, who have no idea what's actually going on but think it's hilarious when I am shadow-boxing at home.

And then there's the squad... let's start with Jim and Jo, who I have known for many years. It was a bit of a relief to have friends in this with me from day one, and the encouragement they have given both verbally and just by going through it side by side has been invaluable. Then there's Rocco, the two Barrys (Barries?), Aman, Joe, Oli, Craig, Jesper, Canaan, James, Denis, Natasha, Geoffrey, Sam, Angela and Jon, all of who I have gotten to know to different degrees over the 13 weeks. The level of support and cameraderie I have seen within the squad has been fantastic... and I look forward to hanging out with you all in non-gym locations once the dust settles!

Dangermouse...?

Did I miss one...?

Ah, yes... my opponent, Aran. We got to know each other early on, and I'm certain we will continue a friendship afterward. He brews his own beer, for one thing! Long before we realised we would be fighting each other he was offering me words of encouragement (wonder if he's regretting that now?), and since the weigh in we have shared some cracking banter / trash-talk. Neither of us will be going easy on the other tonight, but I know we'll have good drink together once we are done... and I like the fella enough to have prepared a care-package for him, for afterwards!!

Care Package for Aran...

Well, that's it from me until the fight is over... good luck to all my fellow contenders, and to Aran let me just say - may the best Guv'nor win!

Going Out on a Limbo

It's been a strange week.

With the weigh in over and done and the anticipation and uncertainty of knowing my opponent behind me, I have been left with this surreal feeling of being in limbo. The sparring has stopped, the workouts have become lighter, general exercise less frequent - even my diet has changed again, in order to prepare for the fight. And without the intensity it almost feels like everything is over and done, in a strange kind of anti-climax...

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. There are just five days left until I step into that ring. And just because I need to take my foot off the gas physically, to ensure I am rested, I haven't stopped thinking about Saturday night and all the ways it could play out. I have been reading how other boxers - professional and amateur - prepare for fight night: exercises for the final week that keep you tuned up without overdoing it; precisely timetabled diet regimes for the day itself; ways of psyching yourself up before the bout; and so much more. I have been weighing up different strategies used by previous White Collar boxers, in order to maximise my efficiency in the ring. I have also started monitoring my sleep patterns, and realised that a combination of two kids, plus family visiting, plus late nights at work, plus overthinking about the boxing (!) has not been doing me any favours... so perhaps taking a hotel room the night before the fight may bring me some calm and rest?

Or maybe I should just stop thinking about it all so much? Easier said than done, especially with everyone I meet wanting to ask me about it...! I could write a book with all of the advice I have been given just in the last five days alone, although what gets me more are the people who adopt a fighting stance in front of me and ask me to "show them what I've got"! I am now at the stage where I am willing Saturday 23rd to come quickly... not because I am eager to get it over with, I am just frustrated by the repetition of the wait, and the banality of not giving it 100% all of the time.

Like I said, it's been a strange week. And it's only going to get stranger!

With Enemies Like These, Who Needs Friends?

In the first few weeks of training everyone was trying to work out who they might be up against. Subtle questions regarding how much we each weighed was a good indicator, but it also seemed worth looking at who the coaches were pairing us up with, even just for skill work rather than sparring. As such I was utterly convinced I knew who my opponent would be.

I would be a liar if I said I wasn't nervous all day last Friday as we waited for the Weigh In that evening. It seemed strange to my friends - after all, this wasn't the actual fight! But I could barely eat all day and found myself checking my watch four or five times an hour. There was something about that evening that was suddenly going to make this whole endeavour much more real than it had ever seemed before, and everything was about to come into sharp focus.

I presumed that I would be fighting B. for very good reasons. He was only a little older than me (and we are the two oldest boxers taking part), of a similar height and build, and without any background in boxing at all. And when coach joked the first time we paired up "you do realise you will be fighting each other on the night", that just sealed it for me. So I started keeping track of his progress, where he was stronger than me (he was definitely quicker and with a heavier hit) and where I felt I dominated (I seemed to have more aggression, and was always moving in close and forcing him to move back).

The manager of the venue, The Exchange, got to see the slideshow that would accompany the Weigh In ahead of time, and asked if I wanted to know who I had been drawn against. I declined, as I wanted to savour the anticipation and uncertainty, but I did ask him to tell me was which bout I was in, just so I could be ready... Bout 6, just after the halfway mark, and by which point ten of the other boxers would already have been named. Assuming one of the female bouts would be in each half, that would leave myself and seven other male boxers by the time my bout was announced - still too many to have an accurate guess at my opponent!

For several sessions this went on, and even when we were not paired up for anything I would pay close attention to how B's skills were developing. And then one evening we were asked to weigh ourselves. It turns out that no matter how close we had been in weight and build on day one, we had taken very different paths during training. I had shed my fat at a ridiculous speed, but only become skinnier and lighter. He, on the other hand, had turned much of his into muscle. All of a sudden we were no longer in the same weight class, and I had to cast my eyes around once more to try and determine who I would be matched up with.

Some of the regulars in Molly Malone's collared me Friday lunch time. "Who do you think you'll get?"; "Do you have a preferred opponent?"; "You must have some idea!"... but I genuinely did not. I knew who it would absolutely not be, but I had trimmed myself down into the middle of the pool where everyone is pretty close. That afternoon I was distracted weighing up the pros and cons of each of my potential matches...

What I saw worried me a little. All of a sudden I was within weight of all these guys who were ten to fifteen years younger than me, naturally fitter, and with way more experience in the gym. It was at that point I had to switch off from thinking tactically about exploiting my opponent's weaknesses and really start to focus much, much more on just improving myself. After all, you can't tailor your preparations to several wildly different fighters... 

Even the best laid plans rarely go without a hitch, and despite all my efforts to be surprised someone leaked me my opponent's name within five minutes of me arriving at The Exchange. It turns out to be someone who even just two weeks ago I would not have considered a possibility, although the thought had started to cross my mind very recently. He's a guy I get on with well, who organised the recent Charity Pub Quiz with me, and who could very easily be a good friend - and our wives met that evening, and immediately got on like a house on fire. But for now, we have to get used to the idea of knocking lumps out of each other.

People have asked me since, what is he like in the ring, and what are my own chances against him. In truth, I haven't a clue. I was never once pitted against him in sparring, nor did it occur to me until recently that he might be an opponent and I should be paying attention to him. From what I have seen, he seems disciplined and determined, and pretty strong... but everyone has an Achilles heel. I just have to last long enough to find his!

So I raise a glass to my friend / temporary enemy - may we both hold our heads high and proud both before and after the bout! Oh, and I wish you a speedy recovery from the damage I am going to inflict on April 23rd... ;-)

Changing Of Weight Whilst Waiting On Change

Almost a month has passed since my last post (apologies for that, it's been a busy time), and a lot has changed. I am not the man I used to be, and feel like I have become so much more alive. Fitter, stronger, more disciplined and far more confident, I am so much more than I have ever been, in every respect except one... body mass.

AleXXL - Dec 31st 2015

On January 1st of this year I rather masochistically weighed myself. I had been a glutton over Christmas and New Year, and I think I was almost glad to only be 94kg. I was by no means morbidly obese, but the buttons on my waistcoats were straining, and bending down to tie my shoes was bothersome enough that I had purchased some slip-ons. In the back of my mind I knew I was up for the White Collar Boxing, and would have to do something to get in shape... but it still seemed far away and unreal, and there was little I could do to motivate myself. Then, on January 9th, I went to Vanda Boxing Club for the briefing...

We were only in there for half an hour, but I looked around and saw a room full of people who were mostly a good few years younger and a damn sight fitter than I was, and the thought of facing one of them in the ring filled me with dread. But having been full of beer and bravado over the festive season I had already been milking a mini celebrity status amongst incredulous colleagues and clients, and if I backed out I would never live it down. And so I made a commitment to myself, right there and then, that I would walk what I had talked, and walk it right.

I knew nothing about training, and had never felt comfortable in a gym, so I decided to wait until our official training sessions began so I could learn what I should be doing properly, from a coach. In the meantime I could still go running a couple of times a week, like I used to when I was younger, and I could change my dietary habits, so I stopped drinking alcohol that very day and started using a nutrition app to balance out my diet. Over the next two weeks the weight just melted off me, and by the time we went back to Vanda for the first official training session on January 25th I was down to 88.5kg.

Slimmin' it - Mar 12th, 2016

Over time I came to realise that the diet and exercise regime was benefitting me in other areas as well, and not just in my weight. My eczema all but cleared up, my energy levels and concentration improved, my stamina at work and on stage went up several notches, and in short I began to feel more and more comfortable in my own skin. My clothes, however, were another matter, and by mid-March I found myself having to shop for new trousers and t-shirts... only to have to do so again this week after they had become too baggy!

Now, you may be thinking that I have gone too far, that I am doing myself more harm than good - after all, training to box is not simply about weight loss, and some of my fellow contenders have been bulking up whilst I have been slimming down. But the sluggish, breathless person I was in January needed this, not just for fitness but for pride of achievement. Because back then I expected to be, as the title of this blog suggests, a punchbag. Now? At 77kg I am leaner, faster and more agile... and a genuine contender.

But I'm not the only one. I looked around the room again on Monday, almost three months after that first briefing session, and the difference I saw in my fellow boxers - my fellow contenders - was nothing short of amazing. There are the obvious first-glance physical changes we notice - a more chiselled jawline, or toned stomach muscles, or bulkier arms - but also some big changes in attitude and discipline, which are getting more noticeable every session. In January I am sure I was not the only one writing himself off, but now? There are naturally stronger and weaker fighters, but I don't think there is a single person in the squad who could not win on the night.

This makes me both proud to be a part of the squad, but also apprehensive as to who my opponent will be. Yes, despite much theorising, most of us still don't know which of our friends are about to become our enemy... but that wait is almost over! Tonight is the official Weigh In, where we will find out who is fighting who, and in what order. Tonight, we put a face to the trepidations of the last ten weeks. Tonight, we cast our minds back to all the times we genuinely helped each other in training, in the hope that we may recall some weakness that can be exploited. Tonight we become red or blue, and battle lines will be drawn.



Tonight - everything changes.


The Weigh In is open to the public, so why not head down tonight (April 8th) to The Exchange in Asia Square from 7pm to see just how damn tough the squad is looking, and find out who will be fighting who...