A Couples Boxing Tournament – Chapter One, The Sit-down. – by Susanboxer
I was divorced, overweight and out of shape. At 35 years old, I had to either give up on life, or take action to turn things around. Deciding to get in shape is one thing, doing something about it is another. I have no willpower for dieting and exercise was not something I enjoyed. I found traditional gyms to be crowded and unappealing. When a “Boxing Club” opened in my neighborhood I was intrigued. I knew that boxing was a good work out. I figured living alone now I could use a little knowledge of self-defense, besides, I found watching two guys fight kinda sexy. What the hell I thought; I’ll give it a try.
I’m so glad I made that choice. I got myself in the best shape of my life, met some wonderful people and found a passion for something incredibly healthy, exciting and dare I say, arousing. Through structured classes and light sparring, I learned the basic techniques and rules of the sport…how to move, defend myself and throw effective punches. This education only whetted my appetite for more, however. Something inside of me wanted to use these newfound skills on another person. I wanted to compete, I wanted to FIGHT! Unfortunately, this gym did not allow anything more than light sparring between the patrons…they did not want “anyone to get hurt” on the premises. That said, I know there were a few other girls there who had a similar urge as me and I was lucky enough to befriend one.
I really liked Virginia “Ginny” Rogers. She was fun loving and could talk your ear off. We often got paired up for the sparring sessions that usually followed a class. A tall girl at 5’10”, she outweighed me by a few pounds but matched up well against my 5’8’’ 150-pound body, so we found the sparring to be spirited and rather stimulating. More than once the instructor had to warn us not to get too intense. One day we had lunch together after class, and she casually asked if I’d like to really fight her. I didn’t know quite what to say, but I felt a warm rush inside me and blurted out “oh yeah.” The idea of getting this woman in a ring and seeing who is the better fighter was an immediate turn-on for me. “You know they won’t let us box for real in the gym” I responded. “That’s no problem, she said, I have a place where we can go to fight in private”. She had my attention now, “tell me more” I answered. She said her late father was a fitness buff who had a ring installed in his house for his own use. Following his death, several years before, Ginny, her husband Curt and their little daughter Amanda had moved into the old family home to keep her mother company and have her look after Amanda while she and Curt worked. She said it was a good arrangement and her mother, Moira, loved having her granddaughter around the house.
“So, I asked, what did your dad do with a boxing ring in the house?” I asked naively. Imagine my surprise when she casually replied, “mostly he and mom would fight each other there, but sometimes other people would come in for boxing or wrestling matches.” “My mom even introduced me to boxing there as a teenager.” She explained that the ring had gone largely unused since her father, Dr. Howard Feinstein, had passed away from cancer. She told me that he was a prominent and much-loved cardiologist in the community and her mother had never really gotten over his loss. “I’m so sorry” I commiserated, “but you’d like to use it now, to fight me?” She just smiled and nudged me under the table and said “my husband Curt and I have been using it lately, just getting into boxing each other, and we’d like to expand our horizons a bit. That’s why I’ve been taking classes at the gym.” I was listening with intense interest now. “Do you have a husband, boyfriend or somebody who is into boxing?” “Curt and I have been talking about staging a couple’s tournament, you know where we could have a series of fights between the guys and the gals.” “You mean mixed matches as well” I stammered. “Sure” she replied cheerfully, guys fighting guys, women fighting women, and if all works out, mixed fights between the sexes.” She went on to tell me that her husband Curt, at 5’9’’ and 165 pounds was not much bigger than her, and that they had just started fighting seriously, and that she could hold her own against him. “Hell, if I can beat him, you could give him a good fight too.” Mmmmmm, my head buzzing now, “I might have just the guy.”
I had just started dating his terrific guy, the first serious relationship since my divorce. Declan was an Irishman, a little leprechaun of a man from outside Dublin who was here in the US on a temporary work visa, doing something with information management. I was immediately taken by him, with his twinkling blue eyes, merry smile slightly hidden by a bushy mustache and his curly red hair, he screamed Mick. Weighing only about 145 pounds on a 5’7’’ frame, his outsized personality more than compensated for his small stature. As I liked to tell him, he didn’t kiss the Blarney Stone, he swallowed it. Though he was 11 years older than me, his youthful personality masked the age difference. I was really in love with him but knew that he would be going back to his home country when his assignment here was up, so we made no long-term commitments. We had a date that evening, and I sounded him out about the idea of being my teammate in a couples boxing tournament. “Well. That could be fun” he replied jovially, “but I’m afraid I know very little about boxing.” “Christ Declan, you’re an Irishman, I thought you all knew how to drink and fight.” “I do know how to drink sweetheart, and I can learn how to box. Let’s give it a go.” I don’t think he knew what he was getting into, but it sure would be interesting.
A few days later I saw Ginny at the gym and told her we were tentatively interested, and she was absolutely delighted, gushing about how wild and hot this would be. I told her all about Declan and she allowed he would be a perfect addition to our foursome. “Another little man I can beat up” she boasted, starting the trash talking early. “You guys have to come over to the house to meet Curt and make plans for this big event” she gushed. “How about this Friday evening?” “We’ll have dinner and hash this out, around six, OK?” “I’ll text you the address.” When I got home and told Declan, he was more than a little amused. “I guess I’d better learn how to box then “he chuckled and thus began our crash course in the sweet science. I dragged out the gloves and began teaching him the basics. After a few sparring sessions I commented that he was rather better at this than he initially implied. “Sweetheart, you don’t grow up a runt like me in Irish Catholic schools without knowing how to use your fists.”
Friday came quickly and we made our way over to Ginny and Curt’s place. Her father had built a lovely home in the finest neighborhood in town, and the young couple welcomed us profusely. Curt was a good looking, compact man with a quiet, but warm personality, an interesting contrast to his wife’s effusive nature. We both took to him immediately. They introduced us to their darling four-year-old daughter, Amanda, who was being watched over closely by Ginny’s mom. “Susan, Declan, this is my mother, Moira”. I took the hand of a tall, slender, dignified woman of perhaps 60 who greeted me politely, but cooly. She was a bit warmer with Declan, granting him a brief hug and peck on the cheek. Introductions complete, Ginny called for us to sit down for dinner. We chatted amiably over a fine meal of lasagna and salad, lubricated by a nice bottle of chianti before Moira announced, “I’ll clear the table and take Mandy up to bed, I know you have things to talk about.” I commented to Ginny, “your mother looks great, how old is she?” “She’ll turn 62 next month” she replied. “Wow, and I can see where you got your height from.” “Yeah, mom is almost six feet tall; she and dad were like Mutt and Jeff together, he was no taller than Declan here.”
Curt, grabbing the bottle of wine, said “I’ll give you the grand tour and we can discuss things in detail.” We all followed him downstairs to a large, finished recreation room in the basement. There was a well-stocked bar on one side and various comfortable chairs surrounding a professional-looking, raised boxing ring. “This is so cool” I exclaimed. “Yeah, it’s a full 16’ by 16’ with a sprung floor and everything” replied Ginny. “Dad spared no expense on it.” We all settled into the easy chairs, sipped our wine, and after an awkward pause, began to flesh out our plans. Never bashful, Ginny started the conversation directly. “Curt and I have gotten into erotic boxing big time. As you may know, I was exposed to it by my parents and introduced it to Curt. He’s as excited about it as I am.” “We enjoy fighting each other very much but we’d like to expand that to include others with similar interests. Given my experience with you at the gym Susan, we think you might be open to expanding your boxing experience with a like-minded couple and we hope you and Declan could join us in that.” “We find boxing to be an incredible mix of rough, physical competition and erotic, sexual foreplay, and we think you share that view. Am I right?” I swallowed, trying to find the right words. “I know I do, Ginny, we talked about fighting each other for real at the gym, and I’d love to be able to do that. If that includes the man you love and I can include Declan, then I’m all in.” Looking to Declan, he smiled his usual big grin replied in his delightful Irish brogue “sounds like fun to me.”
Over the next several hours or so, we hashed out a plan that would allow us to experience a full-on, competitive boxing experience with our new friends and opponents. Curt and Ginny generously agreed to host the events, given they had the perfect facility for it and offered to put us up for the weekend and feed us as well. It was like getting a free weekend at a resort. Both couples were eager to try a combination of same sex and mixed competition, though to be honest, Ginny and I were keener than the guys on a same-sex match-up. Given their male homophobic hang-ups, they were more interested in squaring off against some strange ginch. Be that as it may, we agreed that the guys and the gals would each have a bout against each other, followed by a mixed fight with the other’s partner. We agreed that we were all close enough in size that a fair and even fight could be conducted with the better fighter emerging victorious regardless of gender. I was still a little uneasy about getting in the ring against people we didn’t really know, so I suggested we could break the ice a bit by having a preliminary series of fights where I would fight Declan and Ginny would take on Curt in front of the other couple. This would give us all a chance to see our future opponents in action and inspire some confidence in the safety and fairness of the overall activity. In the end we agreed that there would be six fights over three consecutive weekends, one each occurring on a Friday and Saturday evening. The first weekend would see Declan and I facing each other followed the next day by Ginny and Curt fighting it out. The following weekend would be a same sex format with Curt and Declan boxing, then Ginny and I taking on each other. The final culminating weekend would see us swapping partners in a mixed match format, me fighting Curt and Declan fighting Ginny. With the basic format agreed upon we moved on to fill in all the details.
We all agreed this should be competitive. None of us wanted a slap and giggle show, but rather a series of hard-fought matches where one couple would emerge victorious. We didn’t want to deal with an ambiguous scoring system that was open to dispute, so we agreed there were only two ways to win a fight. A fighter could quit and concede or his or her partner could concede for them if they felt they were taking too much punishment, the other way to win was via a knockout, where one fighter put the other down for a ten-count. We further agreed that we wanted no one to get seriously hurt or sent to the ER, but we would accept there might be cuts, bruises or other minor injuries resulting from a serious fight between consenting adults. We debated a scoring system that would lead us to an overall winner at the end of the tournament. We decided that a win earned by an opponent’s withdrawing from a match would earn the victor one point, while a knockout victory would garner two points. At the end of the six bouts, the fighter with the most points would be declared the individual winner, while the pair scoring the most cumulative points would be crowned as the champion couple. The rest of the details were negotiated quickly:
- The rounds would be three minutes long with a two-minute break in between.
- There would be an unlimited number of rounds, the fight continuing until a concession or KO.
- The contestants must wear gum shields.
- The traditional rules of boxing would be followed i.e. no low blows etc.
- The fighters would wear traditional satin trunks, tops optional for the women.
- The spouse/partner of each fighter shall serve as their corner person.
- A referee would be present to ensure a safe, fair fight.
We had some discussion about a referee. We decided their responsibilities should be limited to separating the fighters when there was no action in the clinches, maintaining order and adherence to the rules, giving an eight count should a fighter need protection from injury and conducting a ten count in the event of a knockdown. We did not want the ref to be able to stop the fight, that being the prerogative of the fighter or their spouse/partner. When the question arose as to who might fulfill this role, Ginny immediately suggested her mother. “She fought for years and knows how to control a fight.” While not technically impartial I had no doubt that Moira’s presence in the ring would assure a fair, safe, and orderly bout.
It was Ginny of course who brought up the elephant in the room. “How do you feel about stakes” she blurted out. Ever the jokester, Declan quipped “I prefer mine medium rare.” I knew what she was getting at. We all were into this in large part for the sexual tension it created, and that tension needed an outlet. The fight was in many ways nothing but a rough and very physical form of foreplay, with the winner earning the right to dictate and dominate the sex that might follow. Personally, I found that aspect of it very appealing, but I didn’t want to speak for everyone. “We’re all adults here, I think if we agree beforehand that the fight will end in the bedroom on the winner’s terms, I’m fine with it, as long as it’s safe and consensual.” Ginny and Curt nodded enthusiastically but it was Declan who broke the ice, when he said, “sounds like fun, as long as I don’t have to bugger Curt.” On that note we agreed to leave the post-fight activities up to the discretion of the participants. A little drunk on wine and excited by the prospect of actually doing this, we parted company with hugs and a date to meet the following Friday for the first in our series of fights.
To be continued….
