Weight

172lbs on the scale.

Weight: 2007 weigh-in for the Lone Star Beatdown, in College Station, TX. I hadn’t weighed under 180lbs since probably 9th or maybe even 8th grade. In high school, I did Muay Thai as a cruiserweight and boxed at heavyweight (under 201lbs). In this photo, I’m 172lbs on the scale for my second fight, after taking time off from fighting to attend the Merchant Marine Academy. I showed up to indoctrination at USMMA at 217lbs, still fit, and I had recently run a 5-mile race in under 40 min at that weight a few months prior and could hit 15 pull-ups no problem. I hung around 205lbs for most of the last 5 years, but I knew I would be more competitive at my height if I went closer to the 170s. I probably found my best weight at 165lbs, and dropped twice under 160 lbs, which almost killed me both times because of how I did it.

At the time of this fight, I was working on a crane ship that built oilfield infrastructure; it was in dry dock in Mobile, Alabama, so that’s where I prepared for most of this fight. A dry dock is literally that: the ship comes in with blocks carefully positioned per the ship's dry dock plan, then the water is pumped out, and it sits on blocks.

A ship the size of the one I was working on in the yard is something to behold. It was the size of a small building, and on blocks so that, along with other work, the hull could be scraped of sea life and painted. I had the chance to walk underneath a ship once that had just made it into the dry dock. The marine life hadn’t died yet, and thousands of little tongues stuck out of barnacles suffocating outside the water, trying to find their version of air. I felt like I was witnessing a tragedy on another planet.

When I got back home, which was Houston at the time, I would get 11 days of sparring beforehand, which isn’t a ton, but I was training constantly during that period of my life, so neither my coach nor I thought it mattered. I already had plenty of ring experience. So, my main goal while away working for a month was to manage weight and keep my cardio up.

The ship was being totally torn apart and revamped, so living on board wasn’t an option; we all stayed in a hotel outside the shipyard. I worked on the ship 7 days a week, 12 hours a day for a month. I had a meal voucher to the restaurant where I would usually get steak and eggs. Eggs poached, toast dry. My lunch on the ship was some southern-style fried slop in a styrofoam container. I estimated the calories; if my weight weren’t tracking, I would toss the fries and have an instant oatmeal packet instead to keep from starving.  I weighed myself every morning with a scale I brought.

My job mostly consisted of log keeping, inventory, fire watches, and turning off certain alarms while welding was going on, etc. There were only lamps and emergency lighting, so I spent my night shift in quasi-darkness; work never stops on a shipyard. A ship doesn’t make money on blocks. That being said, I had plenty of time to sneak in push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups in my coveralls between tasks. When no one was looking, I would kick the fire main pole to keep my shin conditioning on point.  

The Battleship Alabama museum ship and park were across from the hotel we stayed at; after my shift on the ship, I would alternate between one-day interval sprints in the park and a 5-7 mile run*. There was an old WWII tank in the park to, and in true “being extra” fashion I would do pull-ups of the cannon. Every third day or so, I would take a taxi to the YMCA to hit the heavy bag and do some heavier weights. Downtown Mobile at the time didn’t really have “Southern Charm,” and you could smell the drugs and crime in the air. The YMCA was a fine enough gym.

*One time I did the run in a weighted vest, which was stupid and jammed me up for a couple of days after. Running is hard enough on your joints; my retrospective opinion is if you want to make running harder, just do it faster.

A good night.

I would win this fight with a unanimous decision. I cut my opponent with a skip-in-style left hook called a gazelle punch, then dropped him with a rear teep. He didn’t really belong in there with me. Seeing the half-moon cut over his eye, I felt bad for him; maybe that’s why I’m more of an “adventurer” than a “warrior.” My coach congratulated me, but, as a hardened veteran of the fight game also said, “You know you could have finished him.” Maybe I played it a little safer than I needed to, but when you’re young, you think there are plenty of fights left.