REVIEWS

"I finished it in just one sitting! I couldn't put it down. Simply amazing!"
Villet P.

"Journal To The Ring is a gritty story filled with heart but punches you right in the gut. Once the bell rings, you know it's a Knock-Out!"
Melissa J.

"The story feels consequential and delivers emotional heft! Not to mention, it's based on real events. Journal To The Ring is a must-read!"
Stephanie E.

"This book isn't just for the fight fans. It's a story for every sports fan who ever truly loved their game."
Terrance W.

"Brilliantly eye-opening yet emotionally tense until the final bell. You can almost feel every punch - figuratively and literally."
Sandra H.

"It commences charismatically but concludes cordially. So joyous to read that I dreaded reaching the inevitable end."
Kwamme J.

Let’s chat about when I was only 17 and I first injured someone. It was a rush of emotions. I thought I was legitimately fighting in the famed Octagon while my sparring partner was simply “rolling” to get warm. The poor guy never even saw it coming. But keep in mind that “what was coming” was more metaphorical than literal. I didn’t throw a kick or Superman-punch a la GSP. I didn’t land a devastating knee or spinning back-elbow like Jon Jones. Hell, it wasn’t even a strike. We were grounded. He tried to shoot a double leg takedown on me but I rapidly stuffed it. My sprawl was on point, if my memory serves me correctly. I took his back and the human game of chess commenced. I transitioned into an attempted heal-hook but he tried to roll out. I conveniently rolled with him until he was flattened onto his belly. I had mounted his back but was facing his legs. Not exactly a BJJ dream position for either of us. So I stopped thinking inside of the box and remembered where it all began for me. I was a wrestler at heart and not just an amateur. Pro wrestling was the centerpiece of my childhood. It transcended through our family and friends. Essentially, I dropped the idea of the “standard” BJJ submission and quickly locked my “opponent” in a half-crab (also referred to as the Maple Leaf). He hadn’t any clue of what to do in order to escape so he panicked. Instead of simply “tapping” to me he began clawing at my ankles and even drew blood. And instead of rolling with him on a beginners level, I felt like a real fighter on the verge of victory. It was an all around recipe for disaster. I leaned back tightly as he yelled in pain. That’s when it snapped. In a split second, I felt his left leg go limp in my arms. The rush of adrenaline turned into a horrible feeling of fear. Sorrow quickly rushed through me as pain overwhelmed him. I broke his leg while rolling in a BJJ training session. Just putting that into perspective still bothers me. We weren’t fighting. There wasn’t a crowd or cameras for a television audience. We weren’t competing for money, trophies or even pride. We were simply training. I still remember the agonizing look on his face. I still remember the feeling of his leg going limp. I still remember the guilt I immediately felt, especially when I realized he enrolled his children into tyke-training classes. I injured a father because I was acting childish. As of that moment, I stopped grappling out of fear for what I could do to other people. After word spread of why I walked away, a lot of my training partners were relieved by my exit. Not very coincidentally, that’s when I picked up my gloves again. But instead of getting back into the sour practices of Muay Thai, I decided to venture into a far sweeter science. This is when I began boxing. Unfortunately for me, however, I began training in Muay Thai long before I even conceived of venturing into boxing. To make matters worse, my entire combat sports life began as a grappler in amateur wrestling. So why is this so very inopportune? Firstly, Muay Thai kickboxing is vastly different from boxing, itself. To the untrained eye – which was initially my own – they seemed very similar. I mean…punching is punching, right? But the reality is the principles are significantly diverse. Muay Thai – which is very loosely translated to the “art of 8 weapons” focuses on brutal strikes from your fists, knees, elbows and feet. Beyond this obvious fact, Muay Thai practices a very “straightforward” mentality. I entered my first Thai boxing session when I was 15 years of age and our warm-up was referred to as the “circle of death”. This sounded sinister for a reason – you were burnt out until death seemed likely. The Kru yelled out, “Circool! We hab twonty-too chudents tooday. Doo ten piece now. Press ups now. Go”! I hadn’t a clue as to what was happening but it only took 2 minutes for me to understand his commands. It started with press (push) ups, followed by sit-ups, squats, leg raises, burpees, lunges and knee-jumps. The math was brutally simple: 22 students times 10 reps apiece. For the mathematically challenged, we were to do 220 reps of each respective exercise! Why 10 each? I can only assume it’s an arbitrary number based on his mood that day. After we were burnt out, we were to stretch our groins in splits while he paraded around and kicked everyone’s shins for the sake of pain conditioning. His kicks were thrown with maybe 50% power but he still struck blood on me. I still have the scars across my legs to this very day. After all of that, then the actual Muay Thai training began. Although this level of mental conditioning seemed necessary, it indirectly taught me everything opposite of the principles in boxing. Muay Thai believed in eating a strike to land one. You didn’t bob & weave or parry kicks. You checked them! You took the blow in attempts to land a stronger one. Secondly, I came up in the world of amateur wrestling. He was only 14 when my brother bought books on freestyle wrestling rules – with diagrams and sketches of takedowns and techniques – which I started reading when I was only 7! I quickly learned about passivity – which meant points were given or taken from a wrestler if he began to coast and back-pedal during a match. If you put the principles of those 2 martial arts together – by the time I was 18, it was drilled into my brain to always press forward at any cost! This was literally the worst mindset to take into a boxing ring! The definition of the sweet science was “to hit without getting hit”. No boxing coach on the planet accepted taking a punch to land one or pressing forward for the sake of appearing aggressive. Although the psychological conditioning of Thai boxing and wrestling were applicable and acceptable in a boxing ring, the actual techniques weren’t. Hell, even the stances were entirely different! It didn’t take me long to realize just how primitive my boxing skills were. After several years of grappling in wrestling and BJJ, along with surviving the horrendous Muay Thai training – I wanted to learn how to box. It was brutally obvious to me that my weakest martial art was boxing and thus, I needed to learn. Call it “baptism by fire”…but I started taking boxing fights to simply become better at the sport. Yes, I now realize that initiative wasn’t very intelligent and my first boxing fight was riddled with several mistakes due to this. I even had to mentally change my opening combo of 1-2-left kick to simply 1-2-hook or risk immediate disqualification for kicking a boxer. Altogether, the fact is my journey in boxing began with hopes of simply becoming a far better rounded martial artist.