First Gentleman with Wilson Orhiunu
Email: babawill2000@gmail.com Twitter: @Babawilly
I love boxing and the superstars I most admire are Mohammed Ali and Mike Tyson. Speed, power, courage, flamboyance, charisma and all those nice things that make up an icon and are lacking in one’s own life are good to see in others. Viewing these great athletes provided me with both entertainment and inspiration. They helped to prise open that tiny window in one’s mind that lets in the notion of the impossible being possible after all.
I have watched fights and interviews about these men and have also read countless articles and biographies but today I realise that I do not know the names of their sparring partners. Surely, they had them for how else did they train? There is only so much one can acquire from long road races, skipping, punch bags and lifting weights. Sooner or later the long talks with the coaches and trainers will cease as would the tutorials afforded by watching footages of old fights. In the end, just like the case of a soldier who has acquired quality training, the battle field would beckon. The boxers must go into the ring. That is where the sparring partners come in. It is a bit like immunology where the science dictates that you inject an individual with a little bit of the bug that produces dangerous diseases so that the body develops the defences for when the real disease comes.
To prepare for the day one might encounter Tuberculosis (TB) bacteria in adulthood, at risk children are vaccinated with strains of Bovine tuberculosis bacillus. Simply put, they are TB bacteria that have lived in cows so long that they have forgotten how to survive in human bodies (e.g. Naija wey run go New York and he forget how to survive Lagos life). These Bovine TB bacteria retain some family resemblances to the killer TB bacteria (which kills two million a year worldwide) and while they are too weak to induce disease they are strong enough to induce immunity.
Now back to boxing; the boxer needs that sparring partner who is not as good as the intended opponent but good enough to challenge and inspire the boxer to upgrade his skills. The sparring partner must not however knock the fighter preparing for the fight out cold. Whilst the sparring partners are important for success, we never remember them. Rocky was a boxing movie; one of the best. I don’t recall who his sparring partners were in that movie.
This brings me to the matter at hand – people who try to put you down. First of all, they are low (apologies to Olamide). To pull someone down effectively you must be below them or at least think you are. Those below look up to you and hate what they see which is a rising star. You did not make the world but just happened to be born into it. Go with the flow. Recognise that you need sparring partners if you are ambitious and wish to polish your skills and ascend to your full potential. It is inevitable that bacteria will always be around. You don’t complain about it do you? You just buy a fridge freezer and inactivate the microscopic vermin. These are the same bugs that live in our guts and aid digestion. Bacteria and bad people have their uses. They break things down for you but the trick is to know that they cannot break you down. They analyse your every action by dissecting it into its constituent parts. You get irritated but wisdom dictates that you learn from the free research they have done for you. On the great day of your success you would not remember them.
Let these unfortunate people sting you with their sharp tongue. Just take the pain like a shot in the arm knowing that while they go to bed satisfied that they gave you pain, you in turn would be manufacturing antibodies that fortify your constitution in preparation for the giants to be conquered in your future. No pain, no gain! No child laughs on immunisation day. The life- saving injections are usually received with tears and screaming rather than joy and thanksgiving. That is life; the things that secure your future and destiny are not usually pleasurable. The ability to walk out and perform in a room full of doubters is what separates the winners from the losers.
Now you don’t have to love your sparring partners no more than juicy crops love manure. We all know that without stinking manure, no one eats. Stinking stuff has essential ingredients that ‘fertilise’ our resolve to prove them wrong. Manure can never fertilise itself into greatness. Nay, it stimulates fruitfulness in plants while at the same time spreads false rumours to the uninitiated that the farm is just a stinking place where nothing good happens. Come harvest season, no one remembers the manure. Poor manure does not make it to the dinner tables of families. A man’s gift will make way for him so long as he hones his skills and refuses to be kicked back. God forbid that my BCG vaccine would give me Pulmonary Tuberculosis or that my sparring partner would give me technical knockout and a post -concussion syndrome (headaches and dizziness lasting for weeks).
