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By any standards, it's a big challenge. Take a beer-loving barfly and transform him into a prize fighter. In little more than four weeks.

Step forward our man Mark Kennedy, who has volunteered to go boldly where no Bermuda Sun reporter has gone before: Into the boxing ring on Fight Night.

But why? He said: "It's something physical, something active, completely different to the other sports I have done. It should help me stay fit and in good condition. There is also that primal, man against man, battle that appeals to me."

So far he's had four sessions at Controversy Gym and with less than a month until he walks out in front of 1,500 spectators at Teachers' Fight Night, he knows there is work to be done.

Each week in the Bermuda Sun he'll be documenting his progress as he prepares for the big night. We hope to provide some unique insight into what it takes to switch from arm armchair spectator to centre-stage participant.

By Mark Kennedy

[email protected]

I'd be kidding you if I said I was an athlete - but I'm no slouch either.

I don't play a sport here, but, now and then, I'll lift weights or run along Elbow Beach to keep in some kind of shape.

But the exercise I have done up until now hasn't really been for anything. However, for the past two weeks, it has been.

I heard about Bermuda's amateur boxing world last year, and being a fight fan I knew I had to give it a try.

I'm going all the way with it to Fight Night on March 10. This is my first real foray into man-to-man combat. I've been in two fist-fights in my life, but both took place at a bar and both lasted about eight or nine seconds (my record is 1 and 1).

But my sick desire to take a swing at a guy legally was reined in last week when I took a beating during sparring practice.

I got into the makeshift boxing ring at Controversy Gym. That's where I'm training with my co-worker and fellow training buddy Andrew Raine. I thought that in our camaraderie, he would go easy on me.

I knew vaguely about his year or so of kick-boxing he did in university before I got in there with him, but leaving with a bruised cheek and bloodied up nose, I'm all too familiar with it now.

Getting punched in the face sucks. Good thing he's not joining me in the Fight Night - it's likely we're in the same weight class.

The conditioning for the 10 or so people who train at Controversy two-to-three times a week consists of jumping rope for nine minutes, broken up into three-minute sets, usually followed by standing and holding your arms up parallel to the ground for three sets of three minutes as well. I start to feel the burn in my shoulders after about the first minute, and I'm usually drenched in sweat by that point from the jump rope.

All of this is timed by a bell that rings every three minutes; the gym's owner Chucky Renaud wants his students to get used to training in the same time interval as one round in a fight.

After that it's a laissez faire approach to conditioning that involves weight lifting and punching on one of the various sized bags.

You have no idea how tiring it can be to hit a heavy punching bag with jabs and strikes for three minutes straight until you've tried it. It's not like the Rocky movies - it's taxing for the rookie right up to the pro - and that's why when one of the trainers told me that 'boxing is all cardio' I didn't doubt him.

I've been training at the gym for two weeks now. I've got three and a half more weeks left to turn my vice-ridden lifestyle around and turn myself into a killing machine. I'm getting in the game late - everyone else there, who are also doing Fight Night, has been training for at least two months.

I don't know what's going happen on March 10, but I'm going do my best in the little time I have left to make sure my game of catch-up doesn't haunt me in the ring.[[In-content Ad]]

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