I don't regret giving up a career in this world of sports. Was I wrong?
In 1976, a film was released in the US that won the title of the most successful film in America that year. It was the sports drama 'Rocky', which tells the story of Rocky Balboa, a working-class guy who makes a living collecting debts from a loan shark. His talent and diligence get him out of the slums and he gets the
The opportunity to fight against world heavyweight champion Apollo Creed.
The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won three, making Sylvester Stallone, who wrote the screenplay and starred in the title role, a star. It is considered one of the greatest sports movies of all time and has spawned a long line of sequels.
On March 24, Stallone watched the world heavyweight boxing championship between the black Muhammad Ali and the white Chuck Wepner. Wepner was badly beaten by Ali and, to his surprise, managed to stay on his feet for fifteen rounds before being knocked out. After the fight, Stallone sat down to write the script, and a year later the film was released in theaters.
The film 'Rocky' was not presented as a biographical film and Balboa's character was presented as fictional. Chuck Wepner claimed that the film told the story of his life and for many years fought to be recognized as the real Rocky. More than twenty years before Stallone dreamed of writing Balboa's story, because he was still learning how to hold a pencil and at an advanced stage began to memorize the letters of the ABC. We experienced the entire story firsthand in Haifa city.
Israel Tamari is tanned and muscular. The white uniform only does him good. The navy is not enough for him and he has also started boxing. His data as a veteran rower allows him to even excel at it. Two pairs of boxing gloves were on standby at his house and this led us to train together. When I was ten years old, I spent hours peeking into the "Beitar" boxing club that was on Castle Street. I watched the exercises and fights that were held in the club. A large room, a club
Small. A very pungent smell of sour sweat in the air, in the lungs and trachea. The sight of about twenty men struggling and practicing covered up the inability to breathe fresh air.
This is how I learned the Torah from observation and smell, and over time I felt fit and ready to enter the ring. A contact fighting expert told me that with the first slap I received, I would run away to another city and probably never return. One day, while we were getting ready and trying to imitate the real fight, Israel suggested holding a real fight. Shimon Reichstadt and Menachem Lorber, our assistants, tied the gloves to our hands and the decision was to hold a practice fight of groping as usual, but without the powerful punches needed to achieve a knockout.
The fight begins. We imitate boxing movements and move carefully so as not to hurt each other. All with small, caressing blows. Suddenly, Israel accidentally threw a careless punch that hit me right in the back above my beautiful and special left eye. A reflexive response was my 'wrong' punch straight into Israel's jaw. Israel made a mistake and landed his punch that brought my diaphragm together with my kneecap.
These three punches transformed the fight in seconds into something unlike any Krav Maga and does not exist in the fighting lexicon. Fighting experts are still looking for a name for it. We stood facing each other and, in great anger, we punched each other in the face wildly, without rules or style. A long evening of punches with no defense, no attack, no retreat, no tactics, and no bounces as is customary in this sport. Simply punches of anger. Only when we both put our heads under the stream of cold water to cool the burning skin inside did our enthusiasm cool down. We remained and have been friends in heart and soul to this very day.
My face burned for two days and the marks remained for a little longer. My mother was never able to understand what had adorned my face like that, and no amount of explanation from me helped. It's impossible for a game to leave such marks, she argued, but she hoped that by the time I was drafted, everything would be over. When the marks disappeared, her questions stopped too. Israel Tamari returned to his white and lime uniform, while I decided to retire on a high note and end a successful career without, even, a single knockout.
I have since participated in another boxing match, maybe two, without gloves or rules, which will be told later. The boxing world may have lost a gifted fighter or may have gained much more from my retirement.