Expert: Jack Rose - 3/26/2008

Question
Hello, a little background on myself, I am only 21 and I only have a little less then a year in Boxing with golden gloves when I was 14(seems like ages ago). Prior to that I trained in American style Kickboxing since age six and was ranked second in my division. My short stint with Boxing came to an end when I joined the wrestling team my sophmore year of high school, and made new friends on the wrestling team. After that season my new found friends and I became involved a new style of combat sport, known as Mixed Martial Arts, that had just, at that time, began to trickle down into mainstream America. We began training MMA after that wrestling season and every off season following. After high school I joined the Marine Corp with a MMA record of 2-1. I was stationed in Washington DC after bootcamp and SOI where I continued training in MMA in my offtime at a more "technical" gym(meaning that this gym trained the various arts in seperate blocks on different days and times, i.e. 1 hour muay thai, 1 hour jiu-jitsu, 1 hour wrestling, etc... as opposed to my old gym which followed a "miletich" persuasion and trained everything at once) so i was exposed to boxing there  again but only in so much as to supplement my other skills twice a week after muay thai. I added 1 win onto my MMA record(which Im beginning to see as a fad as opposed to the mainstream reputable sport which I thought it was becoming at one point in time) and attained a Muay Thai amateur record of 5-2 while there. After my 2 years at 8th and I, I came down to NC to fufill the rest of my contract in the ingfantry and didnt have much time to train anything, other Marine Corps. combatives known as MCMAP. Here in lies my dillema though while in DC I met a girl, a college girl on the schools swim team, long story short we have been dating for a couple years now. Now this girl is looking to take the trials for long distance swimming for the 2008 olympics in colorado this summer, she made the trial cuts there the previous summer, and has plans to try again for the 2012 if she doesnt make it. Now my relationship with her pretty much aside, going to the olympics is something I can not accomplish with any of the previous sports Ive been involved with(minus wrestling, but I was never a good wrestler, Im built long and slender, most wrestlers are short and stocky, not an excuse though Im just not a good wrestler) However I feel that if she even goes to the Olympics and I do not get any competition on the international level (bearing in mind I have never, despite my potential in some, been interusted in making a career out of any sport) much less the olympics, that my status as an athlete when compared with my girlfriend would make me feel somewhat belittled. That being said my question is this, is it at all possible for my age if I were to start training now to make the 2012 games or would I be too old(for either the sport or the games as most athletes in those games tend to be of a younger persuasion)? Also, do my reasons for being motivated to do such seem wrong in anyway? I apologize for being long winded and hope that you can bring resolve to my conflict.

Adam

P.S.- Another reason for me to start boxing and I realize that this has no bearing on age is the fact its not considered a martial art by many because it is western, this girl is an american born korean and I am of Irish descent, so when people here of my hobbies and see my girlfriend they immediatly come to the conclusion that I fetishize the Asian culture when, in truth, I just like solitary contact sports, and fell for a Korean girl. And also off subject I would like to apologize for my poor us of grammar, spelling puncuation and syntax in this letter, which though longwinded I tried to keep informal.

Answer
Hi Adam, You are not too old to make the 2012 games. You will have to get on the ball though. You will have to fight few novice bouts before you can turn open and you have to be open to have a chance for the Olympic Team. The heavyweight for the USA this year has only been fighting for a couple of years. He is barely an open fighter. He hasn't had many fights at all. He worked out at our gym for awhile and sparred our heavyweight. He is a good example of what you can do in a short period of time.
Guys have different motivations for fighting so as long as it works I wouldn't have too much to say about it. Although, I think once you start training you'll change your reasons for fighting.
I agree with you on MMA. I also think it's a fad. It's already leveled off and starting to fade. We have had a ton of MMA guys come in over the past 6 months wanting to switch to boxing.
There will be a learning curve even though you have some boxing experience from your younger years. MMA does not convert well to boxing. So there will be several changes that will have to be made for boxing.
I would suggest setting a goal for yourself to win the regionals in your area next year. So you will need to get as many fights as you can between now and 09. The regional Golden Gloves is the tournament that advances you to the National Golden Gloves if you win. Then your goal should be to win the national golden gloves for the next 3 years leading up to the Olympics. If you can accomplish this, you will make a name for yourself as the man to beat.

Good Luck,

Jackson