Interlaced like a mountain, fists and feet have no eyes. Ma Baoguo, who was once popular on the Internet and is now criticized for "judging ugly carnival", has been banned, but the legend of his "30 seconds ko three times" is still circulating in the jianghu. Coincidentally, in the United States on the other side of the ocean, another "layman" in martial arts also encountered a "three-in-a-row KO" in the ring of the boxing ring - he was a former NBA player, former dunk contest champion, known as "Little Potato" Nate Robinson. But compared to Ma Baoguo, who sold his reputation and sensationalism, Nate's punch, although he lost, made people awe-inspired him.
Unlike the "wild boxing" that "69-year-old comrade" Ma Baoguo participated in, Nate Robinson played a regular professional boxing match this time, and the specifications and attention of the competition were not low. The tournament kicked off on the morning of November 29, Beijing time, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, which basketball fans are very familiar with. The main coffee of the day's competition is the legendary Mike Tyson who returned to the boxing ring, from the announcement of his comeback to the official appearance, the 54-year-old Tyson has been preparing for a long time and has also satisfied people's appetites. Before Tyson plays, there are several "vice matches" according to the custom, which is colloquially called a cushion game. And one of the sub-matches, Nate Robinson, participated.
Because of his former status as a basketball player and the continuous promotion before the game, Nate Robinson, who is 36 years old this year, has attracted a lot of attention. Of course, the vast majority of these people who pay attention to him are still basketball fans, and everyone wants to see if this dunk master who is only 1.75 meters tall can show his talent and vitality on the basketball court in the boxing ring.
In order to prepare for this game, and to prove that there is more than just a play, Nate Robinson really spent a lot of time and effort training. According to himself, his preparation for this boxing match began a few months ago, and he hired a special strength coach and boxing technique coach to help him prepare from multiple angles.
"[The boxing training] is really tough, I now get up very early every day and run 6 to 7 miles (9.6 to 11.3 kilometers). I have never done this kind of thing in my life, and now I am 36 years old and have started doing this. However, this kind of training does make me feel young again, and it also makes my body full of energy," Nate said in a recent interview, "I feel that I have been adjusted into a new chapter in my life, and this experience in the past, I dare not even think about it." ”
Such words and actions are inspirational enough, but every sport has its own internal laws. Nate Robinson spent decades focusing on basketball to have his illustrious past in the NBA. Now that he has only been training in the ring for a few months, he wants to fight directly with his opponent in the ring, which is a bit reckless.
Nate Robinson's opponent in this match is named Jack Paul, a 23-year-old YouTube video author, the most popular "UP lord" of the moment. He has more than 20 million followers on YouTube and is an out-and-out influencer. And he mainly uploads his various music works, a music MV video from 3 years ago, which has been played 270 million times.
It sounds like Paul is also a boxing "ticket fan", but in fact, he is a boxing veteran compared to Nate Robinson. Around 2018, he began to receive professional boxing training, and after winning an amateur competition, Paul officially stepped into the professional boxing ring in January this year and played a match with another UP master. In that game, Paul won 42 seconds after the start of the first round by TKO (Technical Knockdown).
So, whether it's technical, or experience in the ring, or physical and age factors, Paul is slightly better than Nate Robinson. This may seem like a small gap, but when it comes to the boxing ring, it is constantly magnified over time.
In the opening stages of the game, Nate wants to use his foot movement to use his speed to close the distance with his opponent and then cast a heavy punch. But Paul's own height and arm span are dominant, coupled with more training foundation and competition experience, so Nate's routine did not receive too good results, and was dodged by Paul. Coupled with nate's forward thrusts, the fist does not rise up to make a defensive movement, and the trance makes people feel that he is still dribbling on the basketball court. But this open door gave Paul a lot of opportunities to attack. Commentators on the scene also kept saying, "He (Nate) is not punching at all. ”
With about 52 seconds left in the first round, Nate performed a "punch after breakthrough" action, and as a result, paul dodged Nate's fist, his body was facing forward, and his right fist was immediately swung, right near Nate's left ear, knocking it directly over the boxing ring. Nate stood up near the end of the referee's second reading, his left hand covering his ear and rubbing it, obviously not lightly beaten. Shortly after getting up to resume the game, he slipped under his feet and fell down in the ring. Before the end of a round, he fell to the ground twice, which obviously did not bode well.
After a short break, Nate, who was back on the field, quickly punched a few punches, but the result was fruitless. Instead, Paul grabbed Nate's left-handed defensive gap again, knocking out Nate Robinson again with 1:55 left in the second set. At this time, although Nate stood up again with his hands on the ground, his eyes had begun to be a little loose, as if he had been blinded.
Finally, with 1 minute and 25 seconds left in the second set, Nate couldn't hold on. Jack Paul still took advantage of Nate Robinson's undefended advance and swung a fist with one right hand, hitting Nate's left cheek. The whole process was the same as the first knockdown in the first set, but Paul's punch this time was much stronger than the first set. Judging from the slow motion, this punch deformed Nate's face. Nate seemed to be completely unconscious, and fell straight down in the boxing ring, and the referee immediately called a halt to the game and called for the doctor to play.
From the post-match statistics, Nate Robinson swung a total of 56 punches in less than two games, 18 more than his opponents, but he only hit his opponents with 10 punches, using the "shooting rate" in the basketball field to count, only 18%. In contrast, his opponent Paul, although the number of 8 punches hit By Nate is not high, his shooting rate is higher than Nate's, reaching 21%, and there are 3 knockdowns, which is enough to show that his punches are more powerful and more efficient.
Nate's collapse in the ring marked the end of the first battle of his boxing career, but it became the beginning of all kinds of ridicule of him on the Internet. Before the game began, Nate had posted a tweet that read, "Tonight, I'm going to fight for the people below — the NBA brothers, the other athletes in the world, and more importantly, I'm going to fight for my kids." Between the words, it seems to have made himself a "spokesperson" for the NBA. As a result, after he was knocked down, Nick Young immediately posted a tweet, writing: "This is not the representative of our NBA family. The Wizards, Bill, who was even more vicious, forwarded a "meme" that he had dumped on the court and wrote only one onomatopoeia: "Boom! ”
Boxing laymen watch the hilarity on the Internet, but there are also many insiders who smell the dangerous information. ESPN boxing commentator Teddy Atlas said sternly after the game: "I don't care if you've ever been an athlete, please don't let anyone who doesn't know how to box inside the rope ring come in, Paul is a real boxing trainer, this scene is terrible." 」 Why would the California Boxing Council allow them to do this? ”
Many people think that money is at work, but in fact, according to US media reports, Nate Robinson and Jack Paul's battle, his "guaranteed" appearance fee is 500,000 US dollars. It sounds like a lot of money, but compared to the $20 million "guaranteed" appearance fee of the protagonist Mike Tyson that night, Nate can get not much money.
And throughout his NBA career, Nate has made more than $24 million in playing alone, not counting the money he's made in recent years to play in the Big 3 League, shoot the movie "Uncle Drew" and start a clothing brand with Carlos Boozer. Unlike many splurgeful NBA players, Nate Robinson has not had any negative financial news. Therefore, the view that "punching is to make money" does not seem to stand.
So what sustains Nate Robinson to the ring to face the heavy punches from his opponents? An interview he did before the game may give us some answers.
"I've always loved boxing, and I was in my brother's backyard when I was a kid, with my dad with my dad with a boxing sock and sandbags," Nate Robinson said, "I used to play basketball in front of thousands of people, and now I'm going into a field I've never been in before, and it's a challenge for me, but it's just as much fun." I also wanted to see how far I could go down this path. ”
Nate Robinson's moment of fame in the NBA that year was the 2006 All-Star dunk contest. In the final with Iguodala, he tried to throw himself in the air twice in a row after changing hands under his crotch, a total of 15 times. In the face of the constant boos on the scene, Nate persevered again and again, and finally completed the action and lifted the trophy of the dunk contest champion. Although the process was full of controversy, the final result paid off his efforts.
Nate, who is now standing in the ring, seems to have regained the spirit of the basketball court. And this time the fall is just the beginning of his continued progress, just like the dunk contest in 2006.