It’s Thursday January 26th in the Berkeley Library. Winter still drifts through the concrete building, with students hunched over laptops and flipping through textbooks. Periodic interruptions are amplified in the quiet. But this particular morning the noise isn’t a couple whispering plans at each other, or someone trying to stifle the sound of their crumpled food wrappers. Today it’s the muffled exclamations of shock and laughter coming from two guys towards the back of the hall. Myself and Jacques Feehan are seven minutes through a Roy Jones Jr highlight compilation, marvelling at the speed and swagger exuded from the former four-weight world boxing champion. Feehan, my roommate and fellow third-year law and business student, is not what you would call a boxing fan, in fact, aside from the occasional five-a-side match, he’s not really a huge sports man. Yet as he watches the old footage his eyes track the footwork, the rotation and rhythm of the punches. Feehan is planning.
Flash forward to Tuesday the 31st and a nervous Feehan opens my door and tells me I need to come down to help make sure he has everything. We both know he does, but he needs someone to talk to as he ruffles through his bag. Towel? Check. Change of clothes? Check. Shorts, shoes, wrap? Check, check, check. It’s a little over 90 minutes before the fight night, a charity tilt in the SUAS: Rumble in the Jungle competition against one of his old school friends, Dillon Hennessy.
While Feehan and Hennessy are friends, with that territory comes rivalry. With the proviso that they would fight each other, both had signed up to compete. Thus began a two-month long training session where these two absolute rookies would learn footwork, punching, timing, and general strategy, in the hopes of defeating one another.
Friends turned adversaries, law and business versus law and politics, internal school rivalries, Feehan’s England vs Hennessy’s Ireland, the story lines were endless
Boxing is a unique sport. Such a focus on one single conflict means the buildup can captivate the imagination of millions. In this case the number was not nearly that high yet the match up did have the makings of a pay per view event. Friends turned adversaries, law and business versus law and politics, internal school rivalries, Feehan’s England vs Hennessy’s Ireland, the story lines were endless. Even from a boxing perspective this matchup was intriguing. Feehan holds the advantage of height and reach but Hennessy’s is faster and more athletic. Would Feehan be able to keep Hennessy at a distance with his front jab or would the law and politics lad be able to penetrate that defense and attack Feehan’s core, scoring heavy damage and points? Realistically for two rookies, this was all going to go out the window as soon as one of them takes a shot off the nose, but it was interesting fodder for friends and classmates nonetheless.
Speaking with Kevin O’Reilly, a man boasting a 25-5 amateur record, he described the feelings of anticipation right before a bout: “You sleep like a baby the night before a fight if you know you’ve given everything in training, you’re obsessing about it. Mental preparation before a fight is the biggest thing because you have to wake up that morning ready, and planning out how you’re going to have to punch someone in the face that night.” When asked about the potential strategies of the two rookies, O’Reilly broke it down simply enough, “Jacques’s obviously the bigger guy so for him, setting distance is huge, controlling space is how you win fights, his jab will be everything as he’ll have to deal with Dillon’s better footwork. On the other side, Dillon has to read the jab and counterpunch, timing will be everything for him to get in there while slipping the jab and biding his time so he can get in on the body in order to allow him to start opening up on his chin. He’s going to have to figure out Jacques’s rhythms quickly if he’s going to start scoring points. Whoever wins the first round is going to win it all”. O’Reilly then paused for a moment before adding: “How you deal with taking that first hit is the culmination of your training and your instinct, and it is the entire fight right there. After that bell rings, basic animal instinct has to kick in.”
Standing there yelling, I myself, by no means an advocate for violence, came to realise the appeal of boxing. It is one of the few sports in the world that captures the raw sense of aggression and conflict
Winding my way through the packed crowd of students I turned and looed onto what used to be the dance floor of District 8, which played host to a different type of dancing. Lights illuminated the ring as excited patrons lined the outside railings, pushing through to get the best look they can. Rock music blared as the MC took the mic and welcomed us all to the SUAS: Rumble in the Jungle. The first two boxers were introduced and, just like that, it’s off. A noticeable change comes over the building as soon as the second round began. With the first round being a bit of a tentative affair, the second started with one of the boxers managing to land a clean right hook, staggering his opponent, sending a wave of gasps through the crowd. Suddenly as if a switch had been pulled, the students turned into a pride of lions, watching alpha males fight for dominance, screaming and cheering with every blow landed. The animalistic reaction to violence was something I’ve never seen before across an entire audience, where, even in a charity event, we were all suddenly out for blood. Standing there yelling, I myself, by no means an advocate for violence, came to realise the appeal of boxing. It is one of the few sports in the world that captures the raw sense of aggression and conflict. It’s fast, it’s brutal, it takes guts, and there is a beauty in witnessing two combatants dance in the ring.
Finally, after six fights and a short concert, Hennessy and Feehan made the long, lonely walk down from the changing rooms and into the spotlight before a wild crowd. “No Church in the Wild” blared as Hennessy slowly stepped into the ring, his eyes stony, his jaw tight. Feehan’s entrance was slightly more dramatic as he strode before the crowd to a remix of Drake’s “Forever” sporting a Union Jack flag and a bathrobe. “I wanted to inflict pain, that’s what I was going for yeah”, Feehan commented with a laugh. Friends and classmates waited with nervous anticipation as the two warriors got their finals words of advice from the coaches in their corner and just like that, after months of planning and training and dreaming, the bell rang and into the fray they went.
The first round went exactly as O’Reilly predicted, Feehan leading with the jab and controlling the middle of the ring keeping Henessy at bay. Several shots were exchanged with both taking hits off the face, getting them into the match quickly. By the end of the first round Feehan held the edge by the crowd’s count and the judges. As the fighters caught their breath, the crowd kept the energy rising with both fandoms starting competing chants, the tension in the building clicked up a few notches. The bell for round two rang and any first round tentativeness disappeared as both fighters started out quickly, dancing around one another, raining blows, weaving and blocking, pushing their newly honed boxing instincts. Then, disaster for Feehan, an outside left swing was blocked at the wrist by Hennessy, jarring his shoulder, likely spraining a muscle, bringing about a medical time-out halfway through the round. “Thank god for this break”, Hennessy remembers thinking, “and then, when they brought the chair out and the break ran on, I was worried he would have to withdraw”.
“No Church in the Wild” blared as Hennessy slowly stepped into the ring, his eyes stony, his jaw tight. Feehan’s entrance was slightly more dramatic as he strode before the crowd to a remix of Drake’s “Forever” sporting a Union Jack flag and a bathrobe
“[I was scared] that all of our effort, all of the stress, all of the training would have been wasted. I wanted a fight that would do us both justice and I have massive respect for Feehan that he came back and delivered”, he says. When the fight continued, this sympathy was replaced once more with the competitive fire as Hennessy took advantage of this opportunity and handily took the second round before the bell mercifully provided Feehan with some respite.
With one round remaining in this months-long journey, both competitors took to the ring with the same strategy, attack. Defensive strategies and apprehension were left in the corners as both men took to the center and began throwing everything they could behind their punches. Toe to toe, these friends’ rained bombs on one another as the electric crowd screamed in excitement all the way to the final bell. When it was all over, the two men in the ring embraced as the club took a collective sigh of relief and roared their approval. Any judging decision couldn’t change the fact that these two men would leave the ring, with the respect and admiration of all those who bore saw the fight. In the end the split decision went to Hennessy and the two men made their way out of the ring and into the embraces of their friends.
Speaking with O’Reilly one more time on the subject, he captured perfectly the unique experience of the lonely, simple, sport of boxing: “True mastery of boxing is perfecting the basics and nobody ever does, there’s a guy in the ring with you but in the end its all about how you do things, hit your opponent more than you get hit yourself. The rush of the buildup is unlike anything else and as soon as that bell goes off everything changes.”
The fight got to the heart of the RAG Week spirit – friends clubbing together to raise funds for charity. From the the Iron Stomach competition yesterday to last night’s Trinity’s Best Dance Crew competition, the week has provided plenty of memorable highlights so far. RAG week finishes today, but still promises some interesting events to end the week, with Trinity Move offering an mystery tour in the Pav from 8pm.
