Chapter 13： state championship

Chapter 13 State Championship

"Link, isn't this too high-profile? If your opponents notice, they will study your playing style, and your next game will become more difficult."

In the office on the third floor of the boxing gym, West looked through the game records and said with some worry.

Link won all three games by KO, and his performance was extremely outstanding. After the regional competition, many people in the Miami boxing circle paid attention to him. This attention may be well-intentioned, but it will never lack malice. For the purpose of protecting Link, West decided to discuss it with Link.

"It doesn't matter. If you want to be famous, you have to pay for it. I'm not afraid of being targeted."

Link shook his head. The purpose of doing this was to attract others' attention.

Now is the Internet era, with advanced information and communication technology. The public can use the Internet to collect information from various platforms for free, which also makes the public's sight and attention easily distracted.

Just like the Ali era and Tyson era, they were able to gain extremely high attention among the people and become highly popular boxing champions just by relying on newspapers and TV news.

Their games will also be sought after by boxing fans, and they will receive extremely high ticket and PPV (pay per view) revenue shares. Each game will be divided into tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars. The US$10 million in the 1960s and 1970s is comparable to that in 2008 40 to 50 million per year.

Now if he wants to become a popular boxing champion like Ali, Tyson, and Holyfield, and earn more dollars, he must become famous and find ways to gain more attention and discussion.

In the competition, one of the ways he thought of was to kill his opponents as quickly as possible and show his tyrannical strength.

"West, if there is any media interviewing me, please keep it secret for the time being to leave some suspense to the media and the public. When it is exposed in the finals, it will gain higher attention and topics." Link thought for a while and said.

 West nodded. He has been in the boxing ring for thirty or forty years and knows a lot about the boxing circle. He can also understand Link's approach and purpose.

There is no doubt that Link is right.

This also reminded him of when he debuted, when his manager asked reporters to interview him and write him a press release. He was still reluctant. He believed that boxers are not actors and singers. Boxers should speak with their fists, not those useless words. False name.

At that time, I was really too young and my ideas were too immature. In the boxing circle, fame is not only useful, but also plays a key role.

Suppose two boxers have the same strength but different reputations. The more famous boxer will receive a bonus of 10 million U.S. dollars per game, and the less famous boxer will receive a bonus of 10,000 U.S. dollars per game.

For the prize money, their explosive strength in the boxing ring is definitely different, and the famous ones definitely perform better than usual.

That year, he fought against WBO middleweight champion Sugar Ray Leonard as a challenger. When the game started, tens of thousands of people in the audience cheered Sugar's name and cheered him on. Sugar won the home court easily. Advantage, but he played under pressure, and finally performed abnormally and lost to Sugar.

As he gets older, West often thinks about the past, thinking about the game at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. If there were tens of thousands of people cheering for him, would he have won?

He felt that he had a good chance, at least he would not be KO'd by Sugar in the third round.

So now he is very pleased to see that Link knew how to use the media, create public opinion, promote himself, and attract public attention at the beginning of his debut.

"Link, you can play with peace of mind. I will leave the media matters to Robinson. He was my assistant and executive agent back then and often dealt with the media. These things are not difficult for him."

"good!"

—

The Golden Gloves Championship schedule was very tight. Just one day after the regional competition, Link, West, Mario, Reggie and others took the Silver Star train to Orlando to participate in the Golden Gloves State Championship Qualifying Tournament.

 Orlando is in central Florida, more than 230 miles away from Miami. It is also a tourist city with beautiful scenery. The more famous tourist attractions in the city include Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, etc.

This is also one of the filming locations for "Harry Potter". In Islands of Adventure, there are tourist projects such as Harry Potter's Wizarding World, Hogwarts Castle, Hogsmeade Village, and Magic Train, which are more suitable for family travel.

The most famous team in Orlando is the Orlando Magic, one of the NBA professional basketball teams.

The Magic's performance this year was mediocre. Although they had "Warcraft" Dwight Howard, Turkish power forward Hidayet Turkoglu, and one of the "Twin Stars" Rashad Lewis, they still lost in the division competition. After joining the Detroit Pistons, he packed up his things and went home early, leaving the arena for the boxers to compete.

The Florida Qualifying Tournament for the Golden Glove Championship will be held at the Amway Arena, the home stadium of the Orlando Magic.

This arena can accommodate 17,000 spectators. This game will also be open to the public. People can enter by buying tickets. Tickets for foreign tourists are fifteen dollars each, which is not expensive.

“Hey, do you guys know, I was a member of the school basketball team when I was in junior high school, and my basketball skills are very good.”

In the lounge of the Amway Arena, Mario looked at the Magic team's logo on the wall and said.

“Why don’t you continue playing basketball? You have the height to play guard.”

"Do you think I don't want to? When I was 18, I stopped growing taller when I reached 6.15 feet. My body became fatter and fatter. Later, I met West and he said that I was suitable for boxing, so I came to practice boxing." Ao hugged the meat on his belly and said.

Link was a little surprised when he saw him. This guy didn't lose any weight despite training every day. He was 208 pounds before and now is 210 pounds. The meat on his body is not pure fat, but fat and thin. It is much stronger than James' meat and is quite resistant to beatings. .

“I originally wanted to play baseball.” Reggie scratched the blond hair on his head and said, “Then I watched Tyson’s game and thought boxing was cooler, so I started practicing boxing.”

“What about you, Link?” Mario asked.

Link thought for a moment and realized that he was originally a miner, and there was no better choice than becoming a boxer.

Although being a boxer is hard and tiring, hitting sandbags with your fists every day, or getting beaten as a sparring partner, it is obviously more promising than working in a dark mine.

When I was in the mine, I was worried about going underground every day, drilling into a hole hundreds of meters deep, looking at the mine above my head, and I couldn't help but worry about being killed by a sudden falling stone, or being buried in the mine in the event of a mining accident. Deep down, not even the body could be found, and the family could not get compensation. Those days were really dark.

For him, boxing was more like a beam of light and a life-saving straw in a dark life, so he did not give up until his death.

“Link?”

“I am a diver and I have a diving license.”

Link said with a smile.

“Cool! I’m going to go diving with you after the game.”

When the group walked into the home court of the Amway Arena, the state championships had already been held for half a day. The venue was divided into two competition points. The left boxing ring was for competitions above 70 kg, and the right ring was for competitions below 70 kg.

More than 2,000 spectators came to the scene, and the atmosphere was quite lively.

Currently, the boxing match on the left is a heavyweight (over 91 kg) boxing match. Two fat athletes are wearing boxing gloves and fighting on the stage. They are also wearing protective gear. The visual effect is average, and the reaction of the audience is also very dull. .

Mario is also a boxer at this level. Originally, West wanted him to reduce his weight and fight in the heavyweight competition. There were not many strong opponents at this level, but he could not lose weight at all and could only compete in the heavyweight competition.

After the match on the stage was over, Mario was inspected and walked onto the ring with his gloves. His opponent was also a Latino from Panama City in the northwest. He was 196 centimeters tall, with strong muscles and relatively long arms.

After the start of the game, after several trials, Mario's opponent took the lead in attacking, using his arm length advantage to hit Mario's face, chest, and abdomen.

Mario was at a disadvantage in the first round, but he defended well and was not disrupted by his opponent.

In the second round, Mario counterattacked, hitting his opponent on the chin with his fist and forcing him into a corner.

“Mario, you took action too early.”

At the end of the second round, West pulled Mario in the rest area and said, "Your advantage is defense. You should defend first and try to drag the game into the third round. First consume the opponent's strength and then take the initiative to attack."

"I understand, I know how to fight, West, don't worry, I will definitely win this one."

Mario said excitedly.

Bang!

In the third round, Mario continued to attack and hit his opponent in the face with a right punch. The opponent fell to the ground, causing quite a sensation at the scene.

Today’s match was averagely exciting. As long as there was a KO on the stage, the audience would applaud.

In the fourth round, Mario knocked down his opponent again. His opponent reluctantly got up and persisted for one round. After being knocked down again in the sixth round, the referee ruled that Mario won.

"Roar!"

After winning by KO, Mario stood on the corner post, raised his fist in excitement, and shouted to the audience, who also gave him warm applause.

Link also clapped his hands.

“West, look, I won.”

Mario shouted excitedly after stepping off the stage.

"You launched the attack too early. If you attack later, you will win more smoothly and you can save your energy for the later games."

 West commented.

Mario laughed, patted his belly and said: "West, I understand what you mean, but there is no need to do that. The opponent just now looked very strong and had long arms. I thought he was very powerful. Wait for him to fight." After a few punches, I realized that his fists were very light, as if he was tickling me. I thought, since he was so weak, there was no need to continue to consume him. I started to attack and knocked him down with one punch. It felt great. ”

Mario pumped his fists and twitched his **** excitedly, like Teddy in the next seat.

“Mario, it’s because you have been practicing with Link recently and your ability to resist punches has improved dramatically, so you feel that your opponent’s punch is not heavy.” Reggie said with a smile.

Mario chuckled, "Yes, compared to Link, that guy's fists are indeed not that good, but Link, if you hit me every day, don't think I will be grateful to you."

“No need, but you have to be careful, there are many strong people in heavyweight boxing.”

“It doesn’t matter, there are not many experts in the Florida Division. I am confident that I will get a promotion spot.”

Mario said with great confidence.

 West shook his head and pulled Mario to continue talking about tactics, asking him to follow the tactics in the next game and not to fight randomly. Mario kept nodding, but his eyes had already drifted to the buttocks of the female volunteer next to him.

—

(End of this chapter)