Kevin had one hand wrap on. He stood arms akimbo in Muay Thai shorts and a t shirt. He raised his wrapped hand. I wasn’t sure if he was ready to fight me or run with me.
“You’re late.”
“Sorry, traffic.”
I moved towards the bathroom to change into my running shorts and sneakers. Ross’ coach, Kirian Fitzgibbons, walked by and took a sip of water from his bottle. His hat had the gym’s logo on it, CSA, and the sinking bill almost touched his wire framed glasses. He wore Muay Thai shorts, a t-shirt with his gym’s logo emblazed on it, and white and blue sneakers, the uniform of a western Muay Thai trainer.
“How’s it going Kirian?”
“Good. Busy.”
“You’re living the dream.”
I wasn’t sure if Kirian heard me as he moved into the large back area of Combat Sports Academy where its equally substantial cross fit program takes place. The entryway of the 15,000 square foot facility where Ross and I stood faced Dublin boulevard and contains a ring, a raised MMA cage, a matted area for wrestling, a separate area for bag work and several treadmills. Pictures of Ross decorate the walls, his famous picture- bent down, his knuckles exposed showing his “Muay Thai” tattoo running along his fingers, his bloodied face after a bout, his portrait with a list of his achievements; Super Light weight WBC international champion, Welterweight WBC USA National Champion, FIDAM welterweight champion of Mexico, the United States Muay Thai federation welterweight champion…
Kevin looked at me with feigned annoyance. The drive from my home in Oakland to Dublin, one of California’s fastest growing cities, took me longer than I expected. His irritation was betrayed by his close cut brown hair which gave him a boyish look despite his 34 years.
“It’s not like I have things to do today.”
I put on my shoes and followed Kevin’s sarcasm out the door.
It was 29 days until his rematch with Tetsuya Yamato. Their first bout on September 30th 2013 brought more energy and excitement to Freemont Street in downtown Las Vegas than all the neon lights in Nevada. Yamato continually cut into Ross making blood waterfall all over his face, his body, and the ring’s canvass. The American’s aggressive technical brawling style pushed him forward and made the crowd scream until the end of the five round fight when Yamato was awarded the decision. It was Lion Fight Promotion’s fight of the year.
“You know if you keep busting my balls I’m gonna leak blood out onto the floor from my shorts.”
Kevin snickered. We began our run on Dublin Boulevard heading north away from the gym. Dublin is a new American city, expansive and reliant on car culture. There was no one else on the sidewalks as we ran by one-story strip malls.
“How have you been?”
“Good. Tired. This has been a long camp.”
Ross’ voice lingered on the “long” and quickened on “camp” as we stopped at an intersection. The traffic buzzed by us as the afternoon sun heated the pavement and our skin. Kevin looked weathered as if all of fights, all of the camps, all of the running had corroded him down to a singular but pure desire.
“I’ve been training for the last eight weeks. I thought that I might have a bout with K-1 but that never went through then and I started helping Gaston with his last fight.”
“Didn’t he get dizzy doing all those spinning back elbows?”
“Ha. Some people said that Gaston got lucky with that elbow but he did that elbow four or five times. It wasn’t a surprise to his opponent.”
“You’ve been in long training camps forever.”
“I just wish promoters would tell me when I was fighting. When you’re at this high of a level you need to be fighting regularly or you’re losing your edge. Plus each time I fight I’m gaining exposure for the promotion. I know I’m signed but I can get fights out of the country and everyone wins.
“The glory of being Kevin Ross.”
Kevin chuckled as we turned east and then south. The five mile loop took us about forty minutes.
Kevin hates running. I know because he told me.
“Running is boring. Sometimes I run my route backwards, sometimes forwards. I hate seeing how far I have to run. I like when it’s segmented up. If I could I wouldn’t run at all. I’m on weight now but need to do some running now until I start doing sprints in a week or two.”
We arrived into the back of the gym and a horde of little kids were beginning their daily cross fit style work outs taught by adults whose musculature would embarrass Arnold Schwartzenagar.
Ross stretched by the raised boxing ring as two boxing trainers recounted their fights in the past. The trainers were waiting for their young boxers to put on their groin protectors, their head gear, and their gloves.
“This one time I got hit with an overhand right. I saw floaters. They were black, white, shining bits.”
“Yeah that happened to me before too.”
One trainer still had the lean physique of his pugilist years with a gaunt face that exposed missing molars when he talked. Boxing sculpted his nose. It was flat, wide, and crooked. The other trainer was short with a tomato can belly and squinty eyes. They tied up their wards’ gloves and sent them into the ring. The two young boxers, they were maybe 18, began to spar.
Kevin lathered his legs with nam man muay. The minty menthol perfume of the boxing liniment overpowered the smell of sweat that lingers in every gym. The American Nak Muay stretched and shadow boxed as he waited for Kirian to come back and hold pads for him.
One of the young boxer’s nose started to bleed. He continued to dance around the ring. The round ended and the young man went to the bathroom to take care of his poor plumbing.
Kirian entered the ring and looked at the matted canvas. His eyes found droplets of red liquid.
“There’s a few spots.”
The tall boxing trainer entered the ring with a spray bottle of cleaner and some paper towels. He misted the canvas and wiped up the blood.
Kevin entered the ring. Kirian tied his six ounce gloves on. Kevin turned to me. His hands sculpted into tight fists covered by red leather.
“I like certain gloves. They have to feel right. A lot of gloves don’t allow you to make a fist. You break your hand that way.”
Ross has broken his hand repeatedly in his 56 fights.
Kirian began the first of the six round series wearing a belly pad and two focus mitts. In between rounds Kirian came over to the ring’s edge where I stood.
“Kevin’s first fight after his knee surgery I would call out combinations, but now I just let things flow. Some fighters, like Gaston, I can just call out combinations, ‘Gatson 3, Gaston 1-2,’ but with Kevin I just let him do what he wants and remind him of things in between rounds, ‘Kevin don’t forget to work the body, Kevin chop the leg.’”
Ross’ punches, kicks, knees, and elbows in the ring are compellingly straightforward. It is easy to compare his actions in the world. It is shown in his record. His movements are beautiful, capturing intangible concepts like grace and power. He rotates his core perfectly as his leg raises and his shin smashes into the pads. He pushes off his back foot and snaps out a jab and instantly shifts his weight so that the power of his cross to the body sinks into Kirian’s belly pad. It is the type of movement that many of us watch and long for.
Watching Ross prepare draws me to ask why. Why is he doing this? Why does he train so much? Why does he kick so hard? What goes through his mind? Why does he keep going?
[1]I didn’t know and I still don’t. He was and is just able to do it. It is the sort of dumb cliché that top-level athletes embody. Athletes like Ross no longer think about their actions when performing, they just do them. It is this dumbness, this unthinking, that is at the heart of the athlete’s gift. They don’t think they act.
Gaston Bolanos appeared at the ring once the pad work was done. The young Peruvian Muay Thai prodigy had recently turned pro and has as many wins as he has fights. He began to clinch up with Ross. The two turned and worked their knee strikes. Kevin ducked away from Gaston’s elbows teaching his muscles to dodge Yamato’s.
The bell rang. Twenty minutes had passed, fifty minutes since Ross had taken to the ring. His chest heaved up and down.
“You look tired.”
“I’m exhausted.”
Kirian came over to his fighter.
“You can teach class still?”
Ross sighed while his chest still heaved for oxygen. He took a long slow breath. He pulled out his dinner, a protein pancake with banana, sunflower butter, and pomegranate jelly. He chewed. He swallowed.
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Kevin took to the center of the room and began to teach a group of students. I walked out the door.
Ross was one training session closer to his rematch.
This article is part of a series leading up to Ross’ rematch at Pechanga Casino on March 27th. For more info check out Lion Fight Promotion and make sure to check in here again next week for the next installment.
Click here for the second in the series
Click Here for the third in the series
Click Here for the fourth in the series
Thanks to Jeff Dojillo for his wonderful cover photo. For more of his work check out his site.
For those interested in Matt Lucas’ writing check out www.matt-lucas.com or his novel The Boxer’s Soliloquy available in print and on ebooks.
[1] Reference to David Foster Wallace’s essay “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart” included in Consider the Lobster. DFW recounts his disappointment with tennis player Tracy Austin’s biography and depicts the estrangement of readers of sports memoirs from the actual participants. By doing so he captures the paradoxical essence of why and how top-level athletes perform.
The post On the Road to Rematch – Ross vs Yamato appeared first on My Muay Thai.