Dr. John A. King sparred against a future Everlast middleweight champion at his gym, the Sweat Shed, a 115-degree brick building with no air conditioning. His coach told him to tuck his chin and throw punches for two minutes to outlast the younger fighter, and it worked. King uses that same tactic in life's darkest moments: refuse to kneel, keep throwing.
I used to do boxing for a sport. At 53, I'm a bit old, you know, it takes so long to heal now. But I used to love boxing, and I remember one particular fight. There was a young buck coming up, he was around 22, 24. He would go on to become the Everlast middleweight champion, and he heard about this At that stage, I was, you know, a 45, 46-year-old living in another part of town, running a little boxing gym. And he needed a warm-up for his title fight. So they arranged it and his entourage came up, you know, the boombox, boom, boom, boom, boom. They pulled up, they all got out and came into this little brick building that we had called the Sweat Shed. And, um, In the sweat shed, we had our ring. No AC. We had an Olympic-sized ring. No AC. Summer. Brick. No fans. 115-degree heat. We always trained 3-minute rounds. The premise being that everyone else fights 2 minutes, and if we train ourselves to 3 minutes, we'll be able to go a little bit longer. So this kid comes up. They've been training in 72, 74 degrees air-conditioned for 2-minute rounds. Comes up and comes into our gym. My coach looks at me and says, he's gonna beat you. He said, there's no point going toe-to-toe to this guy. He said, what you've gotta do is outsmart him and outlast him. What I want you to do is cover up. I want you to tuck your chin and you're just gonna have to endure the first 2 minutes. And when I say go, he said, you ought to give it everything you've got. So we went in and we went about it. 2 minutes. Coach says go, and I tuck my chin and I just threw punches. And at the end of it, I just annihilated this guy. I trained harder, I trained in tougher conditions, and I had that old man muscle memory, the ability just to be able to take a hit and tuck my chin and throw punches. In the worst and darkest days, Of my life, when having done all, I can barely just stand, that principle has literally saved me. When it comes down to it, if I don't know what else to do, I'll just get up and tuck my chin and throw punches. I won't be beaten. You can't knock me down if I refuse to get on my knees. And in life, sometimes it's the simple truths that make all the difference. So no matter what you're facing, tuck your chin. Throw punches.
