Boxing

How many of you are in a relationship with somebody who does something potentially dangerous for a living, or even as a hobby?  I would imagine this list to include firemen, policemen, soldiers, coal miners, sky-divers, rock climbers, and in the case of my boyfriend, boxers.  

Don't get goo excited, he's not anybody that you have heard of, or even anybody that you might have accidentally seen on ESPN at 3am when you're half asleep after having returned from a night at the club.  No, he's one of the hundreds of guys across this country that fight in gyms, in armories, and in private buildings.  He doesn't make his living doing it, and there's really no practical way that he possibly could, so he fights a few times a year and otherwise works a day job.  

The popularity of MMA has taken so much potential talent and interest away from boxing, that the federations have been crippled, especially in the upper weight divisions.  A heavyweight fighter with a middling record has little option but to fight on private (read: unsanctioned) cards, and hopefully make a little money that way.  They aren't bound by the normal rules, and there's no group to punish a fighter for taking steroids, or hitting below the belt, or any of that.  A fighter that wants to fight accepts those as the conditions for doing what they love and train to do.  So, that's what he does, and it makes me very nervous.

Watching somebody you love in a boxing match is not fun, and watching boxing in person is way more visceral and violent than it is on TV.  I've seen two in person now, and it might as well be a different sport when you're there in the same room, hearing the impact and watching the physical reactions.

This is a video of Miguel Cotto's wife and son after his fight with Manny Pacquiao.  Needless to say, they didn't handle well the sight of their loved one taking the punishment that one takes over the course of a boxing match.  He didn't die, but after having been in that woman's shoes, I completely understand the reaction.

As a sidenote, I have no idea why she thought it would be a good idea for their young son to witness their father's fight.  That child's mental trauma was very avoidable, I think.  I'm going to have a child in June, health and good things willing, and I just can't imagine that I'd ever subject him or her to that.

He's 24 now, so by the time a child would be old enough to go, I hope he's long since hung up his gloves.  I'm trying to talk him into a new hobby/career in training, and slowly ease him out without him giving up the thing he loves completely, but we'll see.  He's been doing it a long time, I'm not sure how easy it would be for him to walk away.