Home

Boxing has held the title as the world’s most popular combat sport for many decades. We’ve watched many great battles over the years on HBO, Pay Per View and regular television channels. We’ve also witnessed countless inspiring displays of endurance ,toughness and heart as new champions have risen to the top and old ones have have fallen.

Boxing is a true art form and a great sport; Beautiful to watch, the”Sweet Science” is a game of angles, technique and finesse that enables it’s athletes to punch with more skill, leverage and power than anyone else on the planet.

Not too long ago, most of us believed that the best boxers were the best fighters in the world. That was until a thin looking man from Brazil stepped into the octagon for the first time way back in the early 90’s. Royce Gracie did things inside the cage on that historic night in Denver, Colorado that shocked the world of combat sports.

“How could this guy win a fight without barely throwing a punch?” I remember asking my father who is a 3 time Canadian karate/kickboxing champion. He seemed as baffled as I was at Royce Gracie’s strategy and unorthadox fighting style.

It was crazy! The take downs Royce Gracie attacked with; the insane amount of relaxed control he seemed to have over every one of his opponents once the fight hit the ground; the chokes and arm locks he unleashed over and over again to submit his foes absolutely smashed the thought that boxing skill alone was enough to succeed in a realistic fighting situation.

Nearly twenty years after that first UFC event, MMA has done what few believed it could: It has risen to the point where it has become as popular, arguably even more popular than the great sport of boxing.

This rivalry –which is great for both sports in my opinion–, between these two combat sports has created some animosity between the athletes, supporters and fans that follow or participate in each of them. Many verbal attacks have been made in the media by both the boxing and MMA communities in an effort to discredit one another in the eyes of the public; A high percentage of those attacks have no merit, make little sense and obviously come from blatantly ignorant minds.

Some boxing advocates state that there is no skill in mixed martial arts. Whoa! Obviously they haven’t spent more than five minutes in a wrestling practice or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training session. Five minutes!…Five minutes is all it would take to change their minds forever, I can personally guarantee that.

The truth is that there is more technique in mixed martial arts than a person could learn in ten lifetimes spent training; countless wrestling techniques, thousands of BJJ techniques; and a ton of boxing/kickboxing attacks and defenses are out there to learn. Add to that the fact that combat disciplines are are always evolving and it’s obvious that the learning process is never ending.

On the other hand, MMA’ers are totally wrong when they say pro-boxing skill is useless in mixed martial arts competition. There are many benefits to being a great boxer, all of which a skilled fighter can carry over into their battles inside the cage especially when they have some understanding of take downs and ground fighting. There’s no benefit of punching harder? No benefit in being able to defend punches more effectively or keeping more relaxed and balanced while punching with a fantastic amount of leverage? C’mon of course there is!

I’ve read quotes from fighters saying that the boxer’s jab is useless in MMA. I completely disagree with that statement! My jab has been one of my most effective weapons in every single one of my MMA fights including my fight with Josh Koscheck in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). A good jab controls range, disguises follow up attacks, protects the fighter that’s throwing it and can really hurt its recipient when thrown with the correct leverage and body positioning.

However some things being said have some truth to it: Many mixed martial artists still don’t punch very well. However, they often compensate for that weakness with an intelligent game plan that plays to their strengths. There is also truth to the statement that pure boxers would have almost no chance of lasting more than one round in mixed martial arts competition. The days are gone when any a fighter can be effective with skill in only one range of combat.

We need to look past any rivalry and see how much the sports compliment each other. If mixed martial artists would spend more time training in the art of boxing, they’ll realize how technical it actually is, invest more time training in it and we will without a doubt see some cleaner looking and more effective punching in future MMA fights. Vice versa, if skilled boxers step into martial arts gyms to try out some BJJ or wrestling, they’ll see how much fun it can be to learn the vast amount of techniques that are out there, and see that it is much more than just rolling around with sweaty dudes. It’s when the latter situation happens that we’ll start to see some pretty slick punchers stepping into the Octagon to do battle.

In terms of fan support, people will continue to watch the fights that excite and intrigue them. It’s up to the MMA and Boxing promoters to put together the fights that the fans want to see. There are some very exciting potential match-ups in the sport of boxing as well as mixed martial arts but as we all know sometimes it’s the fights that slip underneath the radar that surprise and have us jumping up out of our seats with excitement. I love those ones!

As a spectator I find MMA more entertaining than boxing. I love the fact that it’s not uncommon for underdogs to win fights. With striking, take downs and ground work to worry about at all times, mistakes are made often and in MMA one mistake could mean defeat. Another cool thing is that you don’t have to knock your opponent out to win. A slick submission is a thing of beauty when applied successfully.

Are you an MMA fan? A boxing fan? or do you enjoy them both?

Here’s a few videos focusing on the MMA vs. Boxing debate:

I finally got my laptop up and running again! Sadly I felt lost without the thing.

Someone stepped on it a few weeks ago and cracked the the screen. I was able to use it for a little while by pulling all the windows and programs over to the top left corner of the screen which was somehow still working a bit.

Anyways, after waiting a few weeks for my new screen to arrive (got it on Ebay),  I couldn’t wait to get it working so I decided to give the repair job a try. What was I thinking?!

Following some instructions I found online, I took the thing apart into what was way more pieces than I had imagined. There must have been fifty screws laying on my living room floor at one point. After two hours of work I had the new screen placed where it needed to be only to find out it was the wrong #$%*(*& type! One plug wouldn’t fit!

A day later I was back on Ebay ordering another one, this time from Europe. Luckily it arrived in just a few days because my entire schedule was in that laptop and I was starting to have a hard time remembering what I had coming up on a daily basis. Inserting the new screen into the already dismantled laptop took only a few minutes but putting it back together was ridiculously difficult. After another two hours I had done it.

As I pushed the button to turn the laptop on, I was so excited! That emotion changed to disappointment and intense frustration when the screen showed only white.

Google help me!

Another search on the internet lead me to believe that the video cable attaching the screen to the motherboard was loose.  A hard push was probably all that it needed. Problem was that I had just reassembled the entire laptop!

I took the laptop apart again, tightened the video cable and reassembled the machine again in about an hour’s–my time improved because I was getting pretty damn good at it by that point– time.

It was once again time to hit…the button.

I did and it started. Even better it actually worked! If if didn’t I honestly would have begun stomping the thing into the ground.

Moral of the story? Bring your laptop to the professionals to get fixed and don’t be a cheap ass like me!

My son’s eyes lit up when we arrived at the carnival. I don’t know if it was the massive amounts of cotton candy that was seemingly available everywhere we turned that did it to him; or maybe it was the bumper cars, ferris wheel or one of the other rides that whooshed, twisted and spun around us as we walked. Either way we were both ready for to have some major fun that night.

After dropping nearly thirty bucks on tickets for the rides I spotted a familiar face in the crowd. It was the mother of one of my students that I had taught some time ago. After a smile and quick hello we talked for a few minutes before she called her son, who was a few feet away with a few of his friends of his, over to say hi.

“Jake, do you remember Jeff, he used to teach you martial arts when you were smaller?” the lady asked, excitedly awaiting her son’s response.

The kid seemed puzzled at first, his recollection skills apparently not having much success at recognizing my face.  That changed a second later . Nodding his head I could tell he was about to speak. “Your wrestling sucks!” he screamed at me. My posture straightened immediately. His mother, obviously embarrassed at her sons totally unexpected comment, called his name out using a harsh tone to let him know his actions were inappropriate.

I got a little pissed and naturally prepared to fire back verbally with a few key points to explain that I was actually a pretty good wrestler; that Koscheck was a national champion and one of the best wrestlers in the game; that it’s his strong point and that he takes down pretty much everyone he fights. A split second before I let those words loose from my mouth I stopped. The fact that the kid was picking his nose, quickly reminded me that he was probably only seven  or eight years old. After a second of processing the situation, I decided to let it slide .

It’s obvious he didn’t come up with that idea himself, as there is no way his wrestling assessment skills are fully developed.  I’m sure he had probably heard some adult say that about me at some point in time, most likely when the fight was being aired on Spike Tv. Many people are so quick to jump at the chance to criticize another person, and so hesitant to offer any sort of praise. As a fighter we must have a “thick skin” to handle that sort of thing. All fighter lose, so we all must face criticism at one time or another during our careers.  It’s simply part of the job.

That being said, I absolutely love the fact that as professional fighters every ounce of  pressure is on us. It’s the driving force that makes me train my butt of in the gym! When we win it’s because we fought well or executed a flawless game plan during the bout. On the other hand, when we come up short and don’t end up victorious,  we are the only one responsible for that less than desired outcome and therefore must expect to face some criticism from fans of any age.

Why did we lose? A small tactical error may have caused the loss or a lack of proper training may have resulted in us being less than our best on fight day. Occasionally it’s a mental thing that helped place the the “L” on our record, because we were thinking negative thoughts during the fight instead of positive ones and all of a sudden those bad thoughts turned real in a heartbeat.

We can’t blame referees for missing illegal strikes or for allowing our opponent to call a time out in the midst of battle because that stuff just doesn’t happen in MMA. Well maybe it could, but ultimately we are responsible for the end result ninety-nine percent of the time.

Train hard, fight smart and get ready for a little criticism after your losses and sometimes even after your wins!

Here are some of my other “Outside The Cage” articles you might like…

“The Two Big Guys = Big Trouble”

“Pushups Instead of Time outs!”

“Growing Up with a Fighting Dad”

“Free Food!”

I left the house minutes after my wife had hung up the phone. She had just finished ordering close to a hundred dollars worth of food from one of our favourite restaurants, East Side Mario’s. I figured that by the time I drove to the restaurant, which was a fair distance away, the food would be mostly likely be ready to pick up.

Arriving, twenty minutes later, I entered and bypassed the restaurant area instead slipping into the bar area. After a quick word with the waitress that was behind the bar, I grabbed a seat as she headed to the kitchen to check on my order.

It was great to be home, back in Hamilton with my family and friends. A few days earlier I had been in the middle of a U.S marine base Miramar, battling it out inside the Octagon in my first UFC fight. It seems that every time I fight hard for three rounds against an opponent I usually have a few bumps and bruises to show for it.  This time was no different. The hat I was wearing covered the stitched up area of skin located just above my right eyebrow line but didn’t do much to mask my nose was still a little swollen from my fifteen minute scrap that I shared with Josh Koscheck.

I continued to wait for roughly ten minutes for the waitress to return. When she did, she was carrying three huge bags packed with the good stuff: Penne and sausage for me, chicken nuggets for my daughter and some other stuff for my wife, son and mother in-law. As I reached into my back pocket for my wallet I faintly heard the words “No charge!” Looking up, I heard those same words again, this time much louder, and realized that it was the waitress saying them.

“The manager says great fight!” pausing for a moment she continued “The place was packed that night, thanks a lot!”

“No prob.” I responded as I grabbed the take out bags, a little surprised by her gesture. I felt a small smile cross my face.

Arriving home, I told my wife the story of what had happened and we all sat down to consume the free food together. I think I ate more carbs in that meal than I had in the entire month leading up to the fight. It was good!

That night I realized something cool. It wasn’t just me fighting within the cage; my friends, family and fellow Hamiltonians were also deeply engaged in the action, many of them maybe even feeling as excited as I was that night.

There are many benefits to fighting the UFC especially when your fight is televised. The first obviously being free food! I’ll spend the rest of this article sharing a few more of them with you.

#2 – You can finally say “Yes” to the question!

When you’re fighting in the lower-tier MMA shows and tell people that you’re a fighter they always ask the same thing. So you fight in the UFC? You then try hard to explain the hierarchy of the different fight promotions, the fact that mixed martial arts is simply the name of the sport, that not every fighter is a UFC fighter and that you have to work your way up to reach the top.

When I returned home from my bout at UFC Fight Night, I found it so strange to be able to answer yes to that question the next time it was asked. It was so cool!

Fighting inside the octagon felt like any other fight had in the past, but when I watched the televised version with the music, the commentators, interviews, tale of the tape and other stuff mixed in, I was like “Damn, I fought in the UFC!” It was a cool moment that I still remember very well.

#3 – You get the best seat in the house

I had never been to a UFC event before the one that I fought in. I had watched a bunch of live MMA shows in the past but never the BIG SHOW.

I don’t think there’s a better seat in the house than the spot I had inside the octagon that night. It’s was well lit, there was no cage obstructing my view of the action and I could easily to see the jumbo fight screen that was positioned high above me inside the aircraft hanger.  The only catch is that the spot requires you to fight a well trained fighter who’s hoping to punch your face off, choke you into unconsciousness and stretch your limbs in many painful directions. Oh yah, I didn’t have to pay for it either…well maybe with a few drops of blood I guess.

#4 – I got the official UFC gloves at home!

Deep in my basement, packed inside a storage box, lays the pair of official UFC gloves that I wore during my UFC debut. Picture the container from the movies Raiders of the Lost Ark and realize that it’s not at all like that one. More like a long Tupperware container with a transparent lid. There’s a small tear in the material, by the knuckle area, in the corner of one of them, a result of a successful punching combo against my opponent’s head.

Getting the gloves wasn’t an easy task as the California state athletic commission wanted them back immediately after the fight. Luckily my coach scooped them up before we left as they are definitely a great keepsake. I’ll probably pull them out and put them on when my six year old daughter begins dating. It’ll be fun to scare the guys a little bit.

#5 – Hearing the Stories

This is probably the best part of all, one that I never had thought about before the fight.  Soon after my UFC bout on Spike TV I began to hear many stories from my friends, family and even some people that I didn’t even know. The stories were about their experience of my fight in terms of where they were, what they were feeling at the time and what the overall energy and excitement of the other people around them had been like. It made me very happy when I realized that my experienced was shared by so many others.

Here are a few funny things I heard, although there were many, many more;

“Mike jumped on the ground by the television set during your fight, excitedly doing techniques on the floor trying to help you out.”

“It looked as though Tom was going to put his first right through the television screen as he watched the fight!”

“When you had the triangle choke locked up before the bell rang, the bar was going nuts! Too bad there wasn’t ten more seconds”

“John was screaming at the screen throughout most of the fight. He was pumped!”

When I think about it, live television is an amazing thing! People are watching us fight at the exact moment it’s happening. The fact that anything can happen at any moment adds nervousness and excitement for everyone watching.

Well that’s all of them. In my opinion, the five best things about fighting in the UFC. There are others and I’m certain the list changes from fighter to fighter but those are mine.

Remember these all happened after only one fight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Unfortunately, post concussion syndrome brought on by a lifetime of training, prevented me from finishing my three fight contract and ended my hopes climbing towards a title shot in the world’s best MMA organization. No worries though because now I finally get to spend more time with my wife and kids. It’s been a blessing in disguise.

What would happen after winning the title? Tough to imagine, it must be crazy.

Train hard and maybe you can find out for yourself in the future!

Now…check out an article I wrote a while back on “THE FIVE DOWNFALLS OF BEING A UFC FIGHTER” to see if pro-fighting is really the job for you.

Wanna punch harder than ever before? download my  ”Developing the KO Punch” FREE Report ==> CLICK HERE

Leaving the theatre, the three of us had huge smiles on our faces. I was happy that I ended up seeing the movie Zombieland with my son and one of his friends  as it  turned out to be much different and way funnier than I had anticipated.

I hadn’t planned on spending the last two hours stuffing my face with popcorn as I watched zombie after zombie get killed –or re-killed I guess you’d call it since they were already dead—in a variety of violently graphic ways. Originally I had dropped my son and his buddy off in front of the theatre around thirty minutes before the movie was scheduled to start. As soon as they had entered the building, I drove away in the direction of my home which is only a few minutes away.

Several seconds after entering my house the phone rang.

“Dad can you come buy our tickets for us? The lady says we’re not old enough” my son asked.

“Sure buddy” I responded quickly, sliding on the one shoe that I had managed to kick off before picking up the phone.

Jumping back into my car I raced back to the theatre. It turned out that I had to stay and watch the movie with the two of them as they were too young to enter with adult accompaniment.  The smile on my son’s face as we headed out into the parking lot through the theatres main door made me happy. His quickly muttered “Thanks Dad for coming with us” was a huge bonus.

Once outside the theatre, I took five steps and stopped. Scanning the huge parking lot, which by this time was completely filled with cars, I struggled to remember where I had parked. I had no memory of walking towards the theatre from a specific direction or something that would help me recall the location of my vehicle. I took another look, this time moving my gaze from left to right at a snail like pace. Then I saw it.

Damn! It was exactly where I had parked it. Immediately in front of the movie theatre, nestled up against the curb a mere twenty feet from where we were currently standing. It was the closest car to the theatre. The only problem was that it wasn’t supposed to be parked there, no car was allowed to park there in fact!

I had stopped the car there two and a half hours ago with the thought that I would quickly run inside, buy the kids their movie tickets and run back and head home. In the midst of the purchase, the confusion of whether they could go in alone or needed me to join them, and the final decision by me to stay and watch the movie, I totally forgot about my illegally parked vehicle.

The two youngsters standing beside slowly turned their heads to look up at me each with a slightly confused look on their faces. I laughed out loud at myself. The four way hazard lights on my car were still flashing bright as we approached it. In the end I really lucked out. Over two hours illegally parked, the car was still there, without any sign of a parking ticket.

My wife and I had a good laugh that night about it all that night, and then my mother in-law had a good laugh, then my brother in-law and a few others did the same as the story was passed around in good fun.

Now that I feel clear headed and pretty much back to normal, I often laugh when I think about some of the funny experiences I had while recovering from post concussion syndrome. The scary truth however is that some athletes dealing with PCS never fully recover and end up living a very difficult life. Hopefully future research will bring improvements in prevention, treatment and general understanding of one of the worst injuries a person can sustain.

=> Don’t miss the next post concussion moment post! Sign up for my newsletter for updates plus access to some great MMA content including over 75 free instructional videos… CLICK HERE.

Related Stories

==> My MMA Concussion Story

==> A Post Concussion Moment #1 (The Pool)

I get asked a lot by people what does it take to make it to the UFC? That’s a tough question.

Throughout my career I never thought solely about the end goal of competing at the highest level of mixed martial arts competition. Instead I looked to improve my skills a daily basis; To get stronger in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, become a more dangerous striker, grow more talented in wrestling. My drive was to become the greatest fighter I could be knowing that if I continued to improve with each passing day, good things would come of it.

Along my journey I realized a few things that may help you along your own MMA path. Here they are:

1) Be humble – Realize you have a lot to learn and search it out

2) Don’t take your losses too seriously – Getting tapped in training, losing a tournament match or not coming out a winner during an MMA fight are all unavoidable occurrences on your way to becoming a great fighter.

3) Train with skilled partners – Try to wrestle with those that can wrestle, box with those that can box and so on…

4) Find a knowledgeable strength and conditioning coach and get yourself in the best shape possible. Your training sessions will be more productive and you’ll make greater gains with less effort.

5) Read books. Books about Martial arts technique, strategies and training; autobiographies about mixed martial artists and other athletes who have achieved the type of success you are looking to achieve; and books that focus on positive thinking, meditation and mental preparation for sports competition.

6) Compete as often as you can in a variety of martial arts and combat disciplines such as boxing, kickboxing, wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

7) Train in group classes, participate in seminars, take private lessons, watch instructional videos and videos of fights. And when you’re not training, visualize your training; reviewing in your mind what you have worked on lately and the things you plan to focus on in the future.

8 ) Keep a log of your training activities. Set a schedule as to what practice sessions you will attend for any given week and stick to it. Don’t allow yourself to miss class by making some random excuse.

9) When you go on vacation or are in the midst of travelling try to find places to train wherever you are go. It’s a lot of fun and very beneficial to roll, spar, practice and share ideas with new people so make sure you do it whenever you get the chance.

10) Believe in yourself. Know deep down inside that you will become a great fighter and achieve all of your dreams.

=> Sign up for my newsletter  for updates plus access to some great MMA content including over 75 free instructional videos… CLICK HERE.

Image is not of my actual pool or house

Sometime during 2007…

It ended up taking nearly a quarter of an hour to get the damn thing from my car to the spot that I was standing at now, at the back end of the customer service line at Walmart. I had done the best I could to fold up the gigantic square of thick vinyl which acted as the lining to the steel frame swimming pool my wife purchased sometime yesterday. Looking at the huge mass of blue material as it now hung wildly off of the dolly, partially impeding the thick flow of customers that were heading towards the exit doors, I realized that I had not done a very good job.

My two kids and I were all so excited when my wife had brought home the pool yesterday. The weather had been scorching over the last few days and my six year old daughter was getting angrier by the day, as she would commonly hear her eleven year old brother having a blast while he and his friends swam in the neighbours below ground pool. Telling her that she was too young to swim with only the boys did anything but calm her down. Getting our own swimming pool was the only solution.

The entire pool, made up of the blue vinyl liner, many attachable plastic pieces that formed a frame, and a connectable salt-water pump, had been set up in a matter of hours. I had read that the water filling process would take a long time. Throwing in our garden hose, I realized that the word long was an understatement, as the pool began to fill at a ridiculously slow rate. The kids and I jumped around in the inch or two of water that had be inserted into the pool before it was time for them to go to sleep. I’m sure we all slept well that night as we anticipated some super fun times in our pool the next day.

The next morning, I had woken up first and had quickly inspected the pool. Noticing that it had not filled as much as I had thought it would, I decided to take a closer look. A long search ended in me finding a slice in the liner that was allowing water to leak out of the pool onto the concrete base below. After two hours of disassembling, folding, packing and carrying, I ended up in this line at Walmart with my monstrous pool liner behind me. I was a little embarrassed as I stood there but was comforted by the thought that I would soon have a brand new liner packed nicely inside an easy to carry box.

My wife had told me that she had spoken to John, a manager at the store, and that he would take care of me when I arrived. Reaching the front of the customer service line, I told the young lady behind the counter something along those lines.

“Hold on for a moment please” she said, her eyes processing the image of the large blue liner that rose up behind me as if it were a tidal wave about to crash down upon all of us. A puzzled look crossed her face as she turned to enter one of the offices behind her. A feeling of worry set in as I imagined them not being able to exchange it for some reason.

Five minutes passed when a large man appeared from the office and introduced himself to me as the manager. His name was not John. It must have been a different manager that my wife had spoken to, I thought to myself. I proceeded to tell him about her conversation with the manager named John that she’d had over the phone earlier that day. Using an almost identical motion and with a similar facial expression, to that of the young customer service girl I spoke with initially, he excused himself, turning to retreat to his office.

Another ten minutes passed as the line-up behind me, and behind my mountain of blue vinyl, grew substantially. What’s the problem? I thought to myself as I began to feel a little uncomfortable about monopolizing the entire customer service area. The office door finally opened and out came the manager not named John. The puzzled look on his face had morphed to a mixture of confusion and a little frustration.

Stepping up to the counter he said, “We don’t have a manager here named John”.

“He’s not here today?” I asked him but before he could give an answer I continued, “My wife said she spoke with him and he said we could exchange our liner for a new one.” I replied, immediately noticing the voices of the customers waiting behind me getting louder as I finished the sentence. They didn’t sound very happy.

“We don’t have a manager named John.” he stated. My face took on a near mirror image of his, slightly different but I’m certain we both appeared equally confused.

“Can I see your receipt?” he asked. I shuffled throughout the pockets of my jacket. Pulling out a long piece of paper, the receipt he was looking for, I handed it over to his outreached hand. A split second later he looked up at me.

“This is not from our store Sir.” A massive amount of blood rushed to my face as the Walmart manager’s words set in. As soon as the receipt was returned to my hands, I scanned it quickly to confirm his statement. Zellers! My mind screamed at me. Zellers! You idiot! It repeated over and over again, seemingly mocking me, as I grabbed, turned and aggressively pushed my pool liner out of the store’s exit. In my mad rush to flee the store, the embarrassment and the line of customers whose time I had wasted, I nearly lost control of the dolly. After working my way back to my van, and repacking the liner inside the vehicle, I was seated in the front seat, deep in thought as I tried to remember what my wife had told me.

I could have sworn she said Walmart?
Man, this sucks!
Where the hell is Zellers?

Zellers turned out to be about twenty minutes away so I slammed the vehicle into drive and set out towards that new destination. An hour or so later, I was home, and we were all back in my backyard setting up our pool for the second time. Not one person knew anything about my embarrassing moment at Walmart and I’m sure it would have remained that way had I not acted on my intense urge to ask my wife what we had discussed about the pool prior to my item exchanging adventure.

It turns out that she had told me to return the pool liner to Zellers several times, and had even mentioned, the day before, that Walmart didn’t sell the type of pool we were looking for.

My excuse? This all happened during the time I was dealing with the initial symptoms of Post Concussion Syndrome. Was it the fatigue I was feeling due to the PCS? Or the problems it was causing with my short term memory? Maybe the uncommon anxiety I felt about getting the pool up and running was the culprit? Or did I have difficulty concentrating well enough to read the receipt properly? I have no clue.

I’m glad and I’m sure all customer service employees around the Hamilton area are unknowingly glad that I’m feeling back to normal now and that the symptoms of Post Concussion Syndrome are behind me. Please do something for me in return for my sharing of this embarrassing moment. Next time you punch someone really hard in training, please pass them on this vital tip…Double Check your receipts before heading out to make an exchange.

=> Don’t miss the next post concussion moment post! Sign up for my newsletter for updates plus access to some great MMA content including over 75 free instructional videos… CLICK HERE.

Related Stories

==> My MMA Concussion Story

==> A Post Concussion Moment #2 (The Car Incident)