Sharp has been kind enough to carve out some space usually dedicated to antagonizing Steelers fans to let me share my experiences living abroad in Shanghai and training for a boxing match. Every week or so, I’ll update you on my training while trying to give you an idea of what it’s like to live in China. Think of it as 24/7 minus the inspiring music but with a lot more talk about dumplings.
Shanghai Fight Diaries: Why Amateur Boxing In China Sounded Like A Good Idea
What follows is the first installment in a running diary from Shanghai, China, where Tim Muse tries his hand at amateur boxing in China, and keeps an account of what happens. Today: Let’s explain why this seemed appealing in the first place.
There’s always something vaguely disappointing about big boxing matches, but watching the absurd finish to the Mayweather-Ortiz fight on live television in a Shanghai sports bar filled with drunken rugby fans at lunchtime felt just plain weird.
Back in the States, the few big matches that my friends and I pooled our cash together to watch were never truly a letdown because the main event was always a culmination of a night of drinking and partying. Even if the actual fights didn’t live up to the hype at least they felt like Big Events. So as I cancelled my lunch order and shuffled off to experience fight night in Las Vegas as a matinee in Shanghai on Sunday, I couldn’t help but feel a bit homesick.
Maybe the fight would’ve been weird and disappointing back home, but at least I would have been with 20 other guys who were drunkenly complaining about Floyd’s pseudo sucker punch.
I’ve lived in Shanghai for almost two years. In that time, watching sports has been alternately comforting and dispiriting. The games themselves are great but afterwards I’m reminded of the distance from home. Mayweather/Ortiz was the first boxing match I’ve watched since coming over here and, truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have gone out of my way if I hadn’t just started training for a boxing match of my own.
This week I signed up to be a part of an amateur boxing exhibition, and for the next three months I’ll be trying my hand at a sport I’ve never played, working toward a fight in December where it’s quite possible that I’ll make a fool of myself. Might as well, right?
As Spencer Hall once wrote, “Moving to another country is to inflict a temporary brain injury on yourself, and the degree varies depending on how far removed said country is from your frame of reference. Move to England, and it is comparable to walking around with a mild concussion. Move to Asia at the age of 21, and you may as well have suffered an aneurysm, and then attempt to function as if nothing ever happened.” I just figured I’d add some actual brain damage to the mix.
The fight's sponsored by White Collar Boxing, an organization that puts on amateur boxing events in cities all over the world to benefit charity. I am, like most everyone else involved, a complete amateur.
I've never set foot in a boxing ring and my punching experience is limited to a few halfhearted attempts at the usual custodian of this site (I’m sure most of the usual readers here occasionally want to take a swing at Sharp; he is, after all, the Colin Cowherd of SBNation). I was a decent wrestler in high school and they say that wrestlers and dancers make the best boxers because of similar footwork. Unfortunately, I suck on my feet; I'd rather concede a takedown and wrestle from the mat.
The training is supposed to be pretty rigorous. At least 9 hours a week of an intense mixture of PT and boxing lessons. The organizer's name is Shane, and he told us last week at the orientation that if we want to actually get in the ring we also need to train independently, start dieting and stop drinking. He went on to say that our trainers are there to be [vulgar British slang that can’t be reprinted] to us.
As fun as that sounds--long training sessions with asshole trainers, a steady diet of salads, and no booze for three months--the question must be asked why I’m not only participating in the event, but actually paying money to essentially be tortured.
After the orientation, they had us fill out some basic information. One of the questions prompted us to tell why we were doing the event. Since my friend had already given the obvious and much cooler answer, “to win,” I jotted down “for competition” and left wondering it was too late to back out.
But I thought about it some more, and that’s still probably the closest answer I could possibly give. Not just competition but real competition. I play pick-up basketball and that’s technically competition, but there’s something missing. Every time I smell industrial strength floor cleaner, some masochistic part of me still gets wistful for miserable wrestling tournaments that lasted all weekend.
A big part of being a sports fan is the desire to be a sports star yourself, but last week on Deadspin, Nate Jackson hinted that, if given the chance to go through training camp, most fans wouldn’t be as sure of their wishes to be part of the NFL experience. He adds that games make it all worthwhile, but practice is still hell.
I understand what he’s saying. Training sucks. But what’s implied when you talk about the reward of the real game is that in the end, there’s no better feeling than when all the training feels worth it.
My boxing training won’t be anything like an NFL training camp or and the payoff won’t be a WBC bout, but at this point, it’s the closest I’m going to get to a feeling I’ve missed for a while.
There’s plenty of time for asshole British trainers to wreak havoc on me in the meantime, but the fight night’s in December, and it’s the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully it won’t be as weird as Mayweather-Ortiz, but if it is... Hey, it’s amateur boxing in Shanghai. What else would I expect?
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