Oliver dropped out of the sky today for some training; just like every boxing coach wants his fighter looking after a winter layoff— big. He’s Jamaican so I don’t think he leaves the house without an Eskimo, a Sherpa, and a team of sled dogs. I suggested he form the Jamaican-American snow removal team this winter and make some money but social occasions seem to have intervened. So I get 195 pounds of muscled up Bacardi and cola wearing my middleweight’s clothes!

We did mitt drills, shadowing drills, and time and measure drills. The later has the coach moving around with an extended fist pointed at the fighter’s chest and chin, as the boxer practices slipping, bobbing, weaving and cutting angles, trying to end up off the shoulder or hip to either side and then turning the coach or using him as pivot post.

Both of us a tad rusty, Oliver’s 11.2 pound head, rated for a heavyweight—so that we could actually cut it off and put it on a Klitschko opponent and expect it to remain intact—bobbed up the middle and smashed the roof of his babe-macking minaret into my chin. The sound was such that the karate students acted as if murder had been committed and stood in stunned silence. Oliver said the butt actually hurt his head. He also wanted to know why I wasn’t on the floor, as he had nearly done me in with a head to head butt once before.

Five hours later my left jaw hinge is creaking and sore and both ganglia nerve clusters are still sending out protest signals to my disinterested brain. The chin bone is bruised and swollen. I definitely think it would have cut without the Nathan Bedford Forest beard—sorry Baby, I’m still trying for the Jeb Stuart look.

Oliver then asked me, “What are the rules regarding beards in the pros?”

I have only seen two beard issues in the pro game and they came down to political pressure for a state commission to have a fighter shave to deny padding to the chin. This is a stupid notion, as the beard only protects against cuts, not shock to the neck and ganglia.

An amateur fighter I handled was made to shave his go-tee at ringside before going on. This is a sensible precaution to keep course beard hairs from getting into the other fighter’s eyes during a clinch.

By 330 B.C., with the rise of gauntlet boxing, Hellenic boxers such as Satyrus and Klietomakhus were sporting thick beards to protect against being cut by the salt crusted leather of the opponents’ knuckle straps. Bleeding from the chin is not an issue for modern fighters as it does not serve as grounds for disqualification due to visual impairment. For ancient fighters, who fought in a tournament format without time limits, and who might fight as many as seven men in a day, loss of blood was an endurance issue.

The statues of Satyrus and Klietomakhus show scoops of flesh removed from the face by gauntlet blows. With the danger of having one’s jaw flayed the beard seems a reasonable counter measure. Also, such weapons could more easily fracture the jawbone than the gloved fist, and my beard proved adequate on that count. Just make sure your chin cushion is not long enough to serve as a handle.

American Fist: A Fighter's View of Boxing is in print and available at the link below.