Marky Schenkelberg examines Bob Nelson before the fight.
Prelude & The Punch
‘Little bit of badass’ Bob battles
big ‘wimp’ boxer, but gets bashed
By Bob Nelson
Senior Editor
The Orientation
The manly voices of boxers and
promoters carried and bounced back
from the shadowed nosebleed sec
tions of Pershing Auditorium. Every
thing, even the arena floor, was dimly
lit.
Except for the ring. It towered
majestically over the floor, basking
in transcendent radiance like Mount
Olympus:
Much too sublime considering the
event. This was a plateau on which
neophyte thugs would bleed and spit
and sweat and drool in savage animal
combat for profit. My profit would
come afterward, when I wrote a $50
story about my experience.
No, Toughman kickboxing con
tests shouldn't be held in spotlights.
They should be held at 1 a.m. in a
dank, dark alley behind the Royal
Grove.
(Near a dumpster.
And most important of all, without
me.
I From 5:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thurs
day, April 18,1 sal ringside with ihc
other 13 light heavy weights wailing
for two more contestants and a short
talk by promoters on rules, physicals
and other details.
The fighters wailed in different
degrees of machismo. Some sat an
gry, some stood cocky. Some smirked,
others stared. Others talked about the
gym or past brawls.
This was the time to intimidate
prospective opponents.
Giving up on the last two fighters,
one of the promoters began explain
ing how the night would work. He
said fighters would be paired off ran
domly and that we would not know
our opponent until the ring announcer
- called our names for the fight. He said
that light heavyweight and two
womeirs fights would alternate with
heavyweight bouts.
The guy droned on. Behind him a
giant blond man wearing a black satin
Toughman jacket was digging through
a case of tapes, trying to organize the
music for the evening.
That meant our briefing was inter
mittently delayed by thunderous sound
bites from songs on the public ad
dress system:
“Weeeccc are the champioooons,
my friend. And wceceee’ll keep on
fighting, to the end. We arc the cham
pions, we arc the Champions ... “
and,
“We will,
We will,
Rock You!”
tchsch...
BOOM! BOOM! tchsch.
It was a high school wrestling
tournament from the early 1980s.
After the orientation, we were
examined by a doctor.
He weighed us, checked our blood
pressure, checked our fronts, backs,
eyes and ears. Three people didn’t
pass the physical; one guy had high
blood pressure, one had a cut over his
eye and one weighed only 145 pounds
— 15 under the minimum. Neil
Johnston, the Toughman promoter,
told the guy with high blood pressure
to go into the stands and think about
women. Ten minutes later his blood
pressure was low enough, for some
reason.
The Wait
People began trickling into the arena
about 7:30 p.m. At 8, one of the
promoters grouped all the fighters
together and gave us a pep talk.
“You’re all gonna be friends after
this,’’ he said.
He ended with:
“You guys and gals are all cham
pions for having the guts to do what
you’re going to do tonight.”
I felt then we needed a group hug,
because we were all so great.
And this “guts” thing. There’s a
fine line between bravery, stupidity
and boundless profiteering.
At 8:10 p.m., the 12 light heavy
weights, 20 heavyweights and four
women fighters were paraded around
the arena to “Gonna Fly Now” from
“Rocky.” I waved to the crowd and
shadowboxed with a few children.
For a few seconds, I was feeling pretty
big.
The crowd was much smaller than
expected, only a few hundred. The
promoters said they expected more
people on Saturday, the night all the
winners from Thursday would fight
for SI,000.
The fighters returned to the dark
ened end of the arena next to the
stage. After a heavyweight fight, the
ring announcer called out the first
two light heavyweights. 1 didn’t have
to fight fust, which, at the time, seemed
like a blessing.
But worse than getting punched, I
think, is the fear of getting punched.
Like the French awaiting the guillo
tine, no fighter knew whose name
would be called next.
Each time the announcer called
for the next contestants, the adrenal
ine would surge. The later a person
fought in the night, the more mo
ments of extreme terror a person faced,
and the less adrenaline he had re
maining for the actual fight.
And this weakened us all. A strange
air of humility and humanity began to
sit in over the remaining contestants.
Fighters who before had been sit
ting stone-faced and menacing were
now asking me how 1 had gotten into
this mess. They would laugh and shrug
their shoulders and tell stories about
how their boss or friends or whom
ever had dared them to do it.
Many of them, like myself, thought
sometime in the past that it would be
funny to enter. Even the street fight
ers who wanted the $1,000 were talk
ing quietly about metaphysics and
their mothers.
And all this time we were stretch
ing and jumping and kicking and
punching, wearing ourselves out.
After a few bouts, I was praying to
go next.
I went last.
Willie Howard, a 22-ycar-old, 163
pounder from Lincoln with two years
of karate, also wanted to fight earlier.
He and I waited for two hours as other
light heavyweights were called to the
ring.
When the last two fighters beside
Willie and I went, we began talking to
each other more. I told him not to
break any pf my bones. He told me
not to break any of his. I told him I
was a wimp. He told me he was a
bigger wimp. He said he had never
been in a ring. I said I’d never hit
anybody in the face.
I told him to say something that
would make me want to hit him in the
face. He didn’t.
The Fight
The announcer interrupted our
conversation:
“In the red comer, ‘Canvasback’
Bawwwwwwwwwb Nelson. And, in
the blue comer, ‘Skid Row’ Wil
liccccccc Howard.”
Getting into the ring without inci
dent, like dressing well, is terribly
important. One heavyweight, George,
ran to the wrong side of the ring and
got trapped behind the press table.
SeeKICKBOX on 10
A bunch of punches from “Skid Row” Willie Howard like this one led up to The Punch.