Pleasure and Pain

This past weekend I had the pleasure of watching professional boxers from around the world inflict “worldly pain” on each other.  In the past, I have never been a big fan of contact sports, but I think over the years I have attained a higher sense of respect and appreciation for all of these athletes.  The amount of discipline, determination, pain, sacrifice, and risks involved is seriously on a different level than any other sporting endeavor.  Imagine getting up at the crack of dawn each day just to have someone try to punch and/or kick you (depending on the contact sport) in each training session?  Those so-called “athletes” in the golfing and motor sports world got nuttin on these “modern day warriors,” and it makes these events even more meaningful in some seemingly radically warped sorta way.

With one championship belt on the line and five undercard fights that night, everyone in the audience definitely got their money’s worth of boxing…

And of course, you can’t organize any boxing event without the “essential” Ring Girls to remind us which round we’re watching…

Li Lin is not a huge fan of boxing unless “it’s PacMan fighting,” but I think she still enjoyed the fights that night…

…especially when the title bout was finally on!  Both fighters went the entire distance, but the fighter from Africa completely took apart his Indonesian opponent…

In fact, the Indonesian boxer looked a lot different at the beginning…

…then after twelve rounds of a one-sided pulverizing bludgeoning…

This ain’t the best picture, but I think the newly crowned champion’s expression says it all…

And what’s up with the Oakland A’s baseball cap?  Is he a Mark McGwire fan too?  I’m sure “Big Mac” would have some tips on how to “juice” it up and get pumped!