Thoughts Hours Before the Fight.

I didn't know if I wanted to write this blog post or not.  It's just a few hours away from my fight and my mind is racing with thoughts.  Some people get nervous for days before the fight, some don't until they're at the stadium, for me, it's a bit of a mix of both.  The best help has been watching "The Ultimate Fighter" reality series and seeing what other guys go through during their training camps and especially right before and after their fights.

I woke up yesterday with my back locked up.  I have no idea how or why it happened, but it hurt to even stand.  It might just be from all the running we do on pavement, or from the stiff shocks on my motorbike, the hard weeks training, it could have been anything.  Luckily I brought a Costco sized bottle of Ibuprofen with me and started taking two pills every few hours.  By last night, I was fine, even though I could still feel the pain, I had full range of motion and figured it would be better after a day's rest.  This morning, my back felt a little better but was still the same.  I've taken seven ibuprofen today and I'm a bit light headed, but overall it's actually a nice feeling.  I tested out some stretching and shadowboxing and I have full range of motion so I should be fine tonight.  It really suck going into the fight not 100%, but realistically that doesn't happen too often anyways.

I asked myself why am I fighting, and it's a long answer that I don't feel like going into right now.  But the reason why I'm fighting tonight is because I said I would, I trained for it, and I want to get it over with so I can fully relax and celebrate.  I'm looking forward to doing all of the things that I've been depriving myself of lately.  Immediately after the fight I plan on buying a big ice cream at 711, maybe a Chocolate Covered Magnum Bar with Almonds.  A cheese toastie, a coca cola, and head to the bar to get a Whiskey and Soda.

A guy from the gym, Yi Wei was nice enough to offer to drive me to the fight tonight, but I told him that I wanted to stay around afterwards and party down at Zoe in Yellow.  I know that I won't be able to sleep afterwards, even though I'll be exhausted, and I've been looking forward to drinking for weeks now.  I also know that after my fight I'll need to re-balance my masculine and feminine energy.  I know it sounds pretty stupid, but leading up to the fight and the fight itself is all testosterone, and the reason why it's hard to sleep afterwards is because my body will be out of wack.  That's why guys don't have sex before a fight, to build it up.  Honestly, even though it would be nice to sleep with a beautiful girl tonight after my fight, what I really need is just a girl there to calm me down and make me feel like everything is alright. 

My biggest worry is always the chance that I might seriously or worse, permanently injure myself in the fight. The good news is that health care is a lot cheaper in Thailand than in the U.S., especially since I don't have insurance, but still, the long term repercussions are serious.  

The other fear that kicks in is the realization that I'm all alone out here in Thailand.  All my of family and close friends are back in the U.S. or in London.  Piers was my best friend at the gym but he recently went back to England.  I have a couple of decent friends here and there but most of them I really haven't known for very long and wouldn't expect them to come take care of me if I wasn't able to get out of bed everyday.  Luckily I live directly opposite the gym so at least there is that.  But i'm going to hope and pray that no one gets injured tonight.

My game plan:

I've heard that my opponent is a big Thai guy that just got out of the Army. He supposedly only has 5 previous fights, the same as me, but that may be a lie and there's always a big chance my opponent will change last minute.  But if it is this guy, I heard that he rushes in with a flurry of big punches the first round and tries to knock guys out.  I'm going to try to pace myself and remember to breathe and relax, all while covering up, keeping my hands high and throwing jabs and straight punches to keep him at bay.  I'm also going to practice picking my shots better instead of just throwing like crazy in hopes for a quick knock out of my own. 

In all of my fights I've always went for the quickest finish possible, but tonight, I'm really going to try to use some technique and only rush with spurts of energy once in a while.  I'm going to prepare for a long five round war, although my prediction, or rather, my wish, is to catch him with a hard clean shot as he's coming in or to weather the storm and let him gas out the first two rounds then going in strong.  Either way, no one actually knows what will happen tonight.  It's in fate's hand now.  All I can do is show up, keep my hands up, fight the best I can and never give up.

Wish me luck,

Johnny

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