Written from memory on 6/15/2022

“Same man. Had a great time. Glad to know all of you savages.”

Really great thing. I saw for instance that dude Anthony [1] gain real life confidence.”

-Backfist Mick, 6/15/2022

…

“You are such a savage beast.”

-A Lady friend I sent a picture of Sean’s machete bruised leg to

…

Here I will try to recall what I experienced fighting with various men. Much of the boxing I cannot remember as I was in over my head trying to keep up with better men. I do recall in my bouts with Sean and John and the two with Paul, that I felt like I was moving and jabbing fine, and then when I got hit, it all went to hell and I ended up standing in front of them.

After Sean hit me in the body there was no sense in even trying to stay away. So I just trusted him not to bat me out of the park and tried to be a decent sparring partner. I do recall deciding to foul him with a lateral hammer fist, which I am told scored.

Going glove to glove with Backfist Mick I tried southpaw and ate a text book lead rear hand right on the chin and discovered why boxing commissions do not allow these Nordic beards—they soften the blow. Seriously, the punch was less stunning than it should have been. Mick later caught me in a glove bind with the cuff of the glove and was turning me so well that I stumbled and went to my left knee hard. I do not know if I ever hit the man. Comically, when I swept and mopped the ring after the event I found 7 long, curly silver hairs on the black canvas, who died defending their home base!

I will cover boxing Paul in its own article, because he is a novice and gave me some breathing space to hit the black box recording.

With Andrew I decided to do a self-defense drill round, where I came at him open handed and tried to clinch as he boxed and moved and counter clinched as Sean coached.

With knives, I basically butchered the men I went against through triangle movement, except for Mescaline Franklin who it was almost impossible to get a clean cut or stab on. Some of the knife stuff had to be slowed down for novices so they would get something out of it. Marcus Mickus, Black Metal, Paul and Andrew had their first real goes with blunt knives, and as usual, by the end of their first round ever, were easily twice as fit for a knife fight as at the beginning.

Black Metal scored a cut on me with machetes in our best of three cuts duel.

Cory and I drew in a gladiatorial kill bout in which he broke my right ring finger with his steel shield and we went the minute distance.

I bested Sean 2 cuts to one, with the final cut at the bell a chop to his tendon above the left thigh that left a deep six inch semi-circle bruise. That would have been a crippling and possibly mortal blow with sharps.

The stick fight with the Brick Mouse was sick and will have its own article.

For my stick fight with Cory I had him select the weapons and he chose two heavy rattan sticks each. His footwork was good and his high line defense was tight. I could not get his leg so went for that big belly to get him to drop his guard so I could smash his head. I thought I was missing his belly or not hitting hard enough for he never dropped his guard or even winced. Afterwards Cory lifted up his shirt and showed three or four 8 inch long high velocity bruises. Good job!

In the end, Sean and I did a stick and Sjambok duel. Since he is a lefty, and we could not use our sticks to defend outside gate strokes, this turned into a battle of attrition, with us trading three times. On the third trade I lashed his shoulder blade laterally as he whipped mine vertically. I remember going to my knee in shock and saying to myself, ‘I’m going to get up and make him quit.’

Then, as I meant to rise, some part of me quit and the other part laughed at the baby inside that managed to steal victory from its fleshy cage once again.

Later that night as we spoke in the house, Sean recalled my stories about his prison guard job, that not only had I remembered the facts after one late night conversation to write them accurately a year later, but that I had done a composite of his two female coworkers that was perfect. Also, he wondered, “How did you know that the transport officers were egging these guys on to fight me? Because I didn’t know until I quit and one of them told me that they always encouraged the felon to fight the intake guard, even telling them that if they beat me they would release him!”

“Well,” I mused, “if grocery clerks do it in a supermarket with new hires, I figured cops did it with new inmates.”

It’s been an honor to be associated with Sean now since 2015.