Tripple R's #2! Hope you enjoy :)

Retell: So as you’ve already read, Micky is a great fighter who was still up and coming in his career. But, unfortunaly, from my last blog, the whole story turned around. With extremely bad management and not the greatest trainer, Micky’s career was slowly going down the drain. He started losing confidence, determination; he just wasn’t the same in the ring. And it was because of his big streak of losses. Micky kept getting fights that he shouldn’t have. His mother’s managing wasn’t working out very well for him. He’d always end up with a guy with so much more experience and skill that was just out of his league for the moment. And his hands weren’t helping. A few years back, Dickie got in a fight and the cops intervened. They were beating him up pretty bad, so Micky tried defending him and in return, the cops took him down and started smashing his hands with their batons. And of course it kept getting worse. He had to have surgery on his hands and wasn’t able to use them for a while. Micky Ward was devastated. Throughout this whole time, Dickie was still getting in trouble and getting arrested. Most of the natures of these arrests were drunk and disorderly conduct. But in the early nineties, Dickie’s criminal activity escalated to armed robbery and kidnapping. It took 27 arrests before Dickie was sent to jail for 8 years. In 1992 Mickey decided to retire. After nearly 2 years in his retirement, Micky started hanging around the Lowell gym’s again. But he’d just tell everyone he’s looking to stay in shape. Everybody would have liked seeing him get back in the ring, but he knew it just wasn’t going to happen. Micky had been working paving the streets but other than that, he didn’t do much. He couldn’t deny it anymore though; he still had a boxer inside him, hungry and unsatisfied. He thought about it a lot, returning to the ring, making a comeback. He ended up talking about it with his good friend, O’Keefe. O’Keefe gave him an extra key to the gym; he said he could come by anytime for a workout. Later on, together they created a partnership. As long as Micky promised that his family wouldn’t interfere, O’Keefe was ready to do anything to help him. As time passed, they trained hard and committed to their goals. O’Keefe worked hard to find Micky a fight, and went through a lot of trouble, but on June 17 1994, everything paid off and Micky finally got his fight. With a new trainer and a new manager, Micky won his first fight in more than two and a half years. Micky was back, better and stronger than ever. Years and months passed by, Micky kept getting great fights and never felt better. He was ready to fight anybody, as long as he could make some decent cash with them and his new management was working out really well. Micky started getting big fights and earning important title. Sal, the man currently in charge of Micky’ management, had to make a big decision. O’Keefe was a good guy, a hard worker and helped Micky a lot, but he wasn’t experienced in the corner. So Sal decided it was time to get a new trainer. With that said, O’Keefe became enraged and decided to leave. But boxing was a tough game and O’Keefe was a tough guy, he’d be fine.

Relate: In these chapters, I can relate to Micky because like I’ve said before, I do kick boxing as well. And it’s very true that everybody has some breakdown sometimes and just wants to give up everything. It’s so easy to be brought down and just quit. But that’s where dedication, commitment and hard work come in place and pay off. You can always become better and stronger at something, its all about will.

Reflect: As always, this book is so fun and enjoyable to read. Lately in the book I think that the author is trying to teach us a lesson through Micky’s life and hard times. Never give up. Life is a hard and long road, but make the best out of it and do what you love the most. I look up to Micky for being so brave and strong. He’s definitely underrated. To me he’s an unknown legend! This book also helps me realize how lucky I am to have a normal life with a normal family. We tend to complain a lot when we don’t even know half of the horrible things other people go through.