“The trick isn’t learning how to fightit’s learning when not to”.
It all started back in 1983.
I was your typical six-year-old runt — obsessed with my local football team, candy, and the undisputed icons of the era: He-Man, G.I. Joe, Star Wars, and Batman. The good stuff. The kind that made you believe muscle and courage could fix anything.
Dad used to travel a lot. Every return felt like a mini-Christmas — a doorbell, the hero’s silhouette, a suitcase rattling with promise. Fun times ahead.
That night, buried among the treasure, was a huge plain white box. Ali on the cover.
I cracked it open without thinking. Didn’t know I was staring at a prophecy — something that would crawl back into my life forty years later: part salvation, part therapy, part war.
Boxing gloves.
But not the normal kind.
These were the toy-of-the-era kind — two pairs of hulking monstrosities, solid plastic, bright blue like Star Wars neon. Designed for kids to beat the living crap out of each other in the name of fun.
Ah, the ’80s.
And the gloves made sounds too. Each hit came with its own soundtrack — a squeal somewhere between a strangled chicken and a troubled fart. Every round was rage, laughter, and revenge rolled into one. I’d deck my brother, he’d lose it, and my old man would laugh — until he became the next target. Beautiful chaos.
Dad was an Ali man. Like most of his generation, he talked about him as if he’d floated down from Olympus — grace, defiance, poetry in motion. I didn’t know it then, but the myth stuck. Years later, I’d pass it on to my daughter. I guess the echo never dies.
Time loops. Always does.
By twenty-seven, the gym had lost its charm. Chrome, mirrors, hollow clangs — all noise, no purpose. Football? Too many variables. I needed a fight that answered only to me. A sport where I was in control. I’d lived the same story in bands before going The One Divide. I knew the drill.
I’d packed on a few kilitos, too. So I laced up again. Real gloves this time.
And the air changed.
The grind stopped feeling like punishment and started to feel like confession time.
I dove into the archives — Gatti vs Rodriguez, Leonard vs Hearns, Foreman vs Moorer — men taking hell and still answering the bell. Blood, pain, and the kind of will you can’t fake.
That’s what boxing teaches you: the underdog always has a chance, if he keeps getting up.
Fast-forward to six years ago. Life caught me with a hook I didn’t see coming. Marriage shattered, plans collapsed, lights went out.
I folded — yeah, I’ll admit it — but I got back up. Laced them up again.
Every day. Every damn day.
No audience. No corner. Just me, the bag, and the sound of my own breathing.
Sweating the ghosts out, punch by punch.
And it worked. Not overnight — healing never does. But the gloves rewired me. The discipline became medicine.
I never boxed to hurt; I boxed to heal. To keep the mind still while the world spun out.
The sweat replaced the noise inside.
So yeah — in my little family of two, boxing isn’t just a sport. It’s a ritual.
My daughter learned the stance before she could spell her name. She’s got a left hook that could make a grown man rethink his choices. It bonds us — the same way it once bonded my dad, my brother, and me.
Because in the end, it’s not about fighting the world.
