I’ve always been a huge fan of combat sports, boxing, karate, Taekwondo, Muay Thai, and now mixed martial arts
and the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship).
Back in the day I organized and promoted several old-school “Tough Man” boxing shows in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Back in the day I organized and promoted several old-school “Tough Man” boxing shows in Lawton, Oklahoma.
We recruited local tough guys,
barroom brawlers, military guys, college football players, ANYONE
willing to strap on a pair of boxing gloves and slug it out in the ring.
It was a round-robin tournament, keep fighting until you lose, winner takes all, two weight classes, each winner takes home $1,000 cash, ten crisp $100 bills, which were presented right there in the ring after they won their final match.
It was a round-robin tournament, keep fighting until you lose, winner takes all, two weight classes, each winner takes home $1,000 cash, ten crisp $100 bills, which were presented right there in the ring after they won their final match.
It was a wildly exciting promotion.
We had some spectacular knockouts, some wild fights, even several fights in the
stands among spectators . . . it was a wild and crazy time.
I’ll never forget the very first
show we put on back in the early 1980s. I had arranged for a local doctor in
Oklahoma City to drive the 90 miles southwest down I-44 to Lawton that night to do the cursory pre-fight
physicals for our fighters. Everyone signed a waiver. There was tension and
excitement in the air.
Now, since this was 1980, we had no
cell phones or email or text messaging or twitter or facebook or anything. It turns out
that my doctor had a medical emergency come up at the very last minute and couldn’t drive
down to Lawton after all. He called my office in Oklahoma City and left a
message for me on my cassette tape answering machine (my trusty little iPhone was still 27 years in the future). The doctor had no way to contact me directly. I never received his
message.
So here I am in the basement of the
Lawton Coliseum in this room full of local tough guys, thugs, motorcyclists,
boxing wannabees, ex-cons, and it’s fight time. They’re all amped up and ready
to slug it out and there’s no doctor to do the physicals. I start to get
nervous.
Then the stands started filling up with paying customers . . . and they're slugging down pitchers of Coors and Bud and eating jalapeno cheese nachos and yelling for the big rumble to get started.
The fighters are jacked up. “Hey, what’s going on? Where’s the doctor? What’s the deal, man?” . . . . Now I’m getting really, really nervous.
Then the stands started filling up with paying customers . . . and they're slugging down pitchers of Coors and Bud and eating jalapeno cheese nachos and yelling for the big rumble to get started.
The fighters are jacked up. “Hey, what’s going on? Where’s the doctor? What’s the deal, man?” . . . . Now I’m getting really, really nervous.
ANSWERED PRAYER: So, together we ran upstairs to the coliseum business office and called this local Lawton physician who, incredibly, arrived just 20
minutes later. The doctor did all the physicals, joked around with the fighters,
even had a great "bedside manner." He did a fantastic job. Then he
graciously stayed for the whole evening as our ringside physician. It all worked out so beautifully.
The fights went on as scheduled. A lot of beer was sold that night. Nobody was hurt (at least not seriously). The crowd loved it. My investors made some good money. It was an absolutely fantastic tough man promotion.
"IT'S TIME!"
I never told anyone that our
official ringside physician that very first night of my career as a toughman boxing promoter was actually NOT a medical doctor. To be totally honest, the doctor who saved my butt that steamy night at the Lawton Coliseum in Oklahoma was, in fact, a veterinarian!
Taking a cue from my esteemed mentor Bob Arum, founder and CEO of Top Rank, a premier boxing promotion company based in Las Vegas (who's also a cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School), I quickly deduced that some details in the Sweet Science are better left unsaid.
Keep your hands up. Protect yourself at all times. And, no matter what happens, the show must go on.
Thank you Bob.
Lesson learned.
🥊 - 🥊 - 🥊 - 🥊 - 🥊 - 🥊 - 🥊 - 🥊 - 🥊 - 🥊 - 🥊
OTHER ARTICLES BY ARENA CREATIVE GROUP
www.billarena.net
o - o - 🙏 - o - o
o - 🥊 - o
OTHER ARTICLES BY ARENA CREATIVE GROUP
o - o - 🙏 - o - o
o - 🥊 - o
🙏
