Twentysomething…By David Lion Rattiner

Boxing Match

Last Saturday, I headed out to Foxwoods Casino (via the Cross Sound Ferry on the North Fork) to check out a boxing match between a 23-year-old Mexican-American from Houston, Juan Diaz, and the 31-year-old Brazilian champion, Popo Freitas. Both fighters were defending their lightweight titles — the winner of the match would walk away with two of them. If you caught the fight recently on HBO, you may have seen me in the background.

One of my major goals for this evening was to get on HBO, so I positioned myself as best I could behind the cameras and randomly tried standing up and sitting down so that I could get in a shot.

Now, being a huge fan of watching boxing on television, I was surprised to see how simple a boxing match really is. All you need is three things — a big room, a boxing ring and some fighters. It is a very raw sport. There are no bells and whistles to it, you either can fight or you can’t — and the only person that can be blamed for losing the fight is the fighter.

I got really good seats to the fight and was probably about twenty feet from these guys slugging it out inside this great big casino. It’s amazing to watch boxing in person because of the sounds that you hear. Each punch and grunt sounds much clearer than it would on television. You also can get a much better feel for the fighters live, which makes it easier to tell who is winning.

We were sitting right behind all of the press that was there. A group of mostly guys were sitting there with laptop computers, typing away as the fight went on. And then, suddenly, after a brutal eight rounds, Juan Diaz imposed his will onto Freitas and forced him to quit while sitting down on his stool. The crowd went nuts.

After leaving, I figured I’d give poker a try. How hard could it be?

I walked over into the poker room at Foxwoods and was amazed at the kind of money that was on some of the high roller’s tables. There were some people that had over $100,000 in chips, just right out there on the table, making bets. One day, I’ll have that kind of money, I thought. But today, I’ll drop a cool $40 on this game.

I traveled all the way to the back of the poker room and found myself a table that I thought was good for me. It was $2 a hand, the cheapest poker table there. Right up my alley.

After sitting in the Foxwoods poker room for about twenty minutes, I lost $40 playing $2 poker. It was so embarrassing, you wouldn’t believe it. I really had very little idea what I was doing and left the poker room with my tail between my legs. Perhaps I would give the slots or roulette a try.

As I walked to the roulette table, I made one bet and lost $20. Luck was just not on my side, so I headed over to Ben and Jerry’s and got a large Cherry Garcia ice-cream and called it a night.

I later learned from a fellow Dan’s Papers employee, Lisa DeLisi, who sells advertising, that there was a lot more to the game of poker then meets the eye and like a professional, she began telling me just about everything she knows about the game. My jaw nearly hit the floor when I heard how much skill was involved with this game.

When I got home, I watched the boxing match on Tivo again to see if I could see myself on television. I didn’t see me, but at the end of the fight, Diaz was being interviewed with Don King in the background of the shot and this guy on a cell phone peeks his head in for just a second and then laughs and peeks away.

If only I could have been that guy.