Wrestling Beast's blog

I met an opponent privately for the first time on Sunday, and we agreed to do some body boxing along with our wrestling. We met at the agreed upon motel and worked up a serious sweat wrestling. I earned all the submissions and then I was the victor in arm wrestling. After we were rested, it came time for our body boxing match. I had been the victor in several such matches with a regular opponent before, but my new opponent was heavier than I was and strong enough to lift me four feet in the air. I was concerned that he may be able to best me in body boxing because he had more padding to absorb blows than I have. I bought a pair of MMA gloves that morning because that was all he had. When I compared his to mine, I noticed that mine had more padding, potentially putting me at a further disadvantage.

So I set up the camera to record our match and we came out and touched gloves. Later when watching the video I see that I was visibly excited, there was tenting in my briefs. The last time I did any body boxing was five months ago. I asked myself “Have I lost my edge? Will he be able to drop me?” It had not happened in years, but I was out of practice.

We started throwing at each other and I was in my zone. I whipped out jabs to his chest that made him say “ouch”. We clinched and I worked over his overhanging gut with uppercuts. I I leaned on him with my weight and used my height advantage to push him around. When we would clinch I tied up his arms. I worked him into the corner more than once and fired shots whenever I could find a target. Because I saw he can take a punch and was not going to fall to the floor or turn away to recover, I often threw combinations. For his part, he threw plenty of punches at me. Unlike him, I made no effort to cover up my stomach. Body boxing works best when each man is unafraid to take the shots from the other. I pride myself on my ability to absorb punches and keep on throwing.

My punches were having an obvious effect because my opponent instinctively tried to cover up. In this situation, boxing gloves are often too big to find the weaknesses in the opponent's defense. On the other hand, I would have almost certainly have hurt my hands on his arms and elbows if using unprotected bare fists. In this case, MMA gloves were the right choice.

My senses were in another world during this match. I anticipated hearing every smack, grunt and yelp of pain, seeing my punches shake and jiggle his masses of flesh, and feeling the impact shoot up my arm and the clash of our thick bodies. Even though its not that hot out, we are sweating so much that the mirror in the room is covered in moisture and the laminate floor became slippery under my bare feet. Two or three times I nearly lost my footing when throwing punches at him.

Like in other body boxing matches, I allow my opponent opportunities to throw several punches at me without answering him back. Most of the time I will eventually strike back with a stinging blow or a combination that will move him back. He says at one point “I'm not even phasing you”. I say no and would not have admitted it even if he did. He also said later that he felt like I was holding back. While I did not feel like I was pulling any punches, I refrained from using my knees because of my height advantage.

There were no rounds and no rest breaks. While there are lulls in the action, I could not let up on the pressure. We were fighting until one of us gets dropped or quits. Eventually we were both starting to tire. I could see the pain and frustration in his face. I felt like I was working over my heavy bag, but now it was punching and pushing back. We are both breathing heavily and I had slowed down quite a bit from the fury of the initial minutes of the match. At one point he pushed me into the wall but he was not able to keep me there for long.

For thirteen minutes we fought and I later could see the sweat on our backs, which the camera does not always capture. After the final hard exchange of punches, I finally heard the concession I was waiting for: “I submit, I submit”. At that point I had even more respect and friendship for the man who gave me such a hard fought match and a fairly earned victory. Now of course I can't wait to do it again!

Update - You can see screen captures of the video I took of this match in my gallery.