In the Summer of 2014, I competed in my first amateur kickboxing fight at the IKF World Classic. I lost that first fight after struggling to even get to the tournament. That first loss kindled a fire in me to compete at IKF the following year and to come home a Champion.
This was a year long journey where I trained hard to be ready for fight. I trained myself mentally and physically to prepare for the fight. I would not have been able to make it to the fight without the support of my lovely wife and my mother-in-law who backed me financially to make the trip from Texas to Florida.
Leading into my first fight, I was extremely nervous. The last time I stepped into the ring, I lost in under 2 minutes of the first round. I wanted to at least go all three rounds or finish my opponent. Leading up to the bout, my opponent was running late. In a tournament setting, the show must go on, they had already called his name 3 times, and I was getting anxious that I would not be able to fight before the championship fight (there were 5 people in my bracket, so I had to fight at least once to fight in the championship bout). He finally walked into the ring and here is the first bout.
I won by Leg Kick TKO in the Second Round. This was exciting for me because now my record has changed to 1-1 and I finally have a victory after a year of waiting. My celebration was short lived because I had to fight one more person the next day. Their bout was after ours, and you can see them warming up in the video above. I watched their fight to see who my opponent would be. After seeing who I would fight the following morining (at 10 am the next day we fought), I tried to relax and enjoy the rest of the fights of the day and watch my teammates compete as well.
The next morning rolls around and I am nervous again about the fight. I got more ring experience from the day before, but I was still anticipating the fight eagerly. There was not much time to process what was going to happen since our fight was early in the morning. We just got up, ate a light breakfast, and started warming up for the fight. Here is the championship bout of 2015 in the Super Lightweight Division:
I won the championship bout by decision! The thing about fighters is that we train hard to punch and kick each other in the face, and at the end of the day, we respect what the other has put into training to get to this point where we are competing. Tommy was a very tough opponent, and we still contact each other every now and then to see how the other is doing.
Tommy and I are posing after our fight. We both gained a lot of experience through our battle with each other.
Most importantly, my teammates and my coach, Eddie Diaz! Coach Eddie Diaz has now had 4 years of championship fighters in a row at the IKF World Classic!