How I Got Into Boxing & Three Things I Would Change IF I Had the Power to in Our Beloved Sport!

By Roy “Sharpshooter” Bennett

Boxing used to be a mainstream sport. Its stars used to be front and center of the sporting world alongside the top soccer, NFL, NBA, and Tennis players. In our house everyone knew who the Heavyweight Champion of the world was. If you didn’t box yourself you watched it on network TV. I was always watching it. In the extended family the men liked to talk about the great fighters of the past, Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott, and my aunt on my dad’s side had a framed photo of a young Muhammad Ali on the wall above her sofa. I wanted to be just like him. And it was against this background that I decided to take up the sport of boxing.

I started attending classes at my local youth club taught by a policeman. He was a no nonsense Scotsman, of whom my enduring memory is the rustling sound he made when he walked. He wore a plastic suit under his sweat shirt so he could sweat more when he trained. He taught me the basics and he once unceremoniously deposited me flat on my back with a left hook in sparring after warning me that I kept dropping my right hand when I threw my left jab. Lesson learned. I never dropped it again.

After a few months he told me to go to the local amateur club if I was serious about competing. He arranged for me to join the training sessions at their annex. This was where all the new aspiring members went. Here you got meet other boys who were keen to train at the main club. We sparred a lot with big gloves on And they let us have at it. It was their way of weeding out boys that weren’t serious about boxing. A bloody nose tends to do that.
After a month or so a bunch of these boys, of which I was one, were sent to the main club for training.

It was like walking into a different world. The equipment, the coaches, the boxers in their kit, the sound of the timer, the atmosphere of the place, had me wide eyed. I loved it from the get go. If you trained at the main club you were expected to listen to the coaches, work hard, and compete in the club colors with pride when your time came.

Get into any trouble outside the club doors, at school, or on the street, and you were out. It was that simple. The talent pool was deep. National champions and England representatives trained alongside green juniors like me and I lapped it up. When I wasn’t at school I was at the gym training. I went on to have a few amateur bouts and the experience did me the world of good. Even today, well into my 40’s, if I had to do it all over again I wouldn’t change a thing.

But having said that, if there were 3 things about boxing today I’d change in a heartbeat if I could what would they be? They would be as follows:

One World Champion in each division

The soccer World Cup and the Olympic Games take place every four years. The winners are the undisputed best at what they do. It should be the same in boxing. One champ in each division. Having four champions in each weight class makes a mockery of the sport. Things need to change. But they probably won’t. Until they do boxing will never be the sport it once was.

Post weigh-in rehydration clause

Piling on twenty pounds overnight after weighing in the previous day is far from okay. Boxers fighting out of their weight classes against smaller guys after boiling down in weight, so they can be the bigger heavier fighter in the ring on fight night is unacceptable. It needs to stop.

Julio Cesar Chavez, JR., is a prime example. He should be fighting as a light heavyweight or cruiserweight. He needs to stop pretending he’s a super middleweight because guess what Julio? You’re not fooling anyone. If this blatant disregard for the rules continues to be ignored it’s only a matter of time before a smaller fighter gets hurt. Look what happened to Joey Gamache against Aturo Gatti.

Gamache suffered irreversible damage and never fought again. Danny Garcia vs Rob Salka gave me an uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu. Undersized and overmatched Salka suffered a terrible knockout defeat. Let that be a warning to us all. A post weigh-in rehydration clause should be set between 8-10 pounds to prevent fighters from abusing the rules. Stay within the rehydration limit or no fight.

Fifteen Round Championship Fights

It always irritates me nowadays when a commentator says, “we’re entering the championship rounds,” (meaning 11 and 12). It makes me want to shout at the TV, “No we’re not!” Hey, it makes me feel better.
Traditionally the championship rounds are 13, 14, and 15.
Some of boxing’s legendary boxers fought tooth and nail over the full fifteen round distance to win or defend their titles and proved their greatness in doing so.

I’m aware of the reason the old championship distance got scrapped. The governing bodies panicked after several ring deaths in the early 1980’s and wanted to be seen to be doing something to prevent ring fatalities, so they cut the championship distance down to 12 rounds.

But they were barking up the wrong tree. It was subsequently found that dehydration played a big part in ring deaths but that had nothing to do with the number of scheduled rounds.

Dehydration was due to fighters boiling down to make weight and failing to rehydrate properly afterwards. As a result the boxer’s brain is less well protected and an accumulation of punishment could prove fatal.

Bottom line? Ensure fighters rehydrate properly. Separate the men from the boys. Reinstate the old 15 rounds championship distance.

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