THE GUTS AND THE GLORY

With no real knowledge of the art of pugilism outside of staying up late to watch Mike Tyson fights on television with my older brothers and remembering the violent tension in the air just before he dispatched his opponents one by one, I was unwittingly brought into the sport, some might even say against my will.

"Here, put these on," my brother Reuben said, handing me a pair of socks to wrap around my hands.

"And these!" handing me a second pair to wrap around my feet so we didn't make too much noise through the floorboards below.

"What are we doing?"

"We're fighting."

"What for?"

"For fun!"

Looking back I would say 'fun' was used in the most liberal way in this context.

Having recently been to Gloucester to watch Rocky IV at The Regal with his mate, Joel, my brother had clearly been inspired by the 'Italian Stallion's' crushing defeat of Soviet icon, Ivan Drago, in a bid to avenge the death of his friend Apollo Creed. I assumed (and probably justifiably so) that I was meant to be Ivan Drago in this play scenario although I never confirmed this as fact. The trouble was I was smaller and younger than Reuben and had absolutely no idea what to do with my fists, let alone what to do with the flying bony ones coming at me from my brother's extended arms.

Jab! Jab! Jab! I felt his sock-wrapped fist against my cheek and shoulder and occasionally in my gut.

To add an extra frisson to proceedings, he'd insisted on playing the Rocky IV soundtrack he had on cassette while we 'danced'.

"Just get through the first four tracks and we'll call it a day."

In any other circumstances that might have have sounded reasonable but the first four tracks were turbo charged 80's gym rat classics such as 'Burning Heart', 'Hearts On Fire', 'Double Or Nothing' followed by 'Eye Of The Tiger' which only motivated my brother to put on an even more souped up display of boxing brilliance.

Of course, his brilliance was only measured by my ineptitude at fighting.

"Alright. You did alright."

More relieved than proud, I was just happy to make it to the end of 'Eye Of The Tiger' without a broken nose.

Finally, unwrapping our socks and returning them to the sock drawer, my brother invited me for another bout.

"We'll have another fight soon."

Not particularly enthralled with the idea, I forgot about the strange event of our combat until the next time which was always sprung upon me by Reuben's whim, meaning whenever he felt like a fight. I had no time to prep psychologically and physically for these scraps; I just had to get through each one learning on the job.

We repeated the format for a few months and somehow managed to avoid getting seriously injured.

Even to this day, I'm still not sure how much the socks lessened the blows but psychologically, at least, it helped.

Sensing I was losing the appetite for battle, my brother came to realise that I would need some material incentives to keep on fighting with him, some form of trophy or item that had some measurable value to me.

"Alright, listen, I've got this watch you can fight for. But only if you go to the end of side one of the soundtrack - James Brown's 'Living In America' and then you can have it."

I don't think a watch before or since has had so much significance in my life. I liken it to Butch's protective obsession of his late father's watch in Tarantino's 1994 classic movie 'Pulp Fiction', the one Christopher Walken passes onto him as a kid in that iconic scene.

This was no antique watch or time piece, though. It was a plastic, bright red and yellow digital watch and in that moment I wanted it more than anything in my life. As we started moving through the paces of our sock boxing 'title' fight, all I could think about was how to smash my brother's lip with a perfect right hook and wrap that watch around my wrist.

By the time we'd reached 'Eye Of The Tiger' I could sense he was slowing down more than usual. Moving into War/Fanfare, his lower lip became the only feature of his face I saw; it was as if the rest of his head had disappeared. Thinking of that beautiful red and yellow watch, I knew this was one fight I had to win at any cost.

Having pushed the boundaries of my comfort zone, we moved into James Brown's 'Living In America', the final song on side one of the soundtrack and the closest thing we had to a final bell for the fight.

Yeah, uh
Get up, ow
Ow
Knock it out this
Woo

Fearing I might lose my impetus through tiredness, I tried to focus on the music to help spring my final attack.

When there's no destination that's too far?
And somewhere on the way you might find out who you are, woo

And with that I launched a devastating punch to the centre of my brother's lip and split it like a peach.

Living in America (ow)
Eye to eye, station to station
Living in America
Hand in hand, across the nation
Living in America
Got to have a celebration

"Owww, you little shit!"

And with that, I knew the final minute or two would be dicey for me. Blocking as many incoming shots as I could, I spent the rest of the 'round' on the defensive, but I sensed deep down the damage had already been done.

Either my brother knew he couldn't realistically hurt me as I was younger and he would get into trouble or he was genuinely hurt by the killer blow I had delivered.

Either way, as the James Brown track came to its close, I roared with a joyous scream of victory as I claimed my prize and left my brother to clean up his bloody lip.

It was to be the last sock fight we had, but it taught me a valuable lesson.

Always have something to fight for.