I\u2019m sick of being poor and living in a slum. I\u2019m tired of being hungry. I want a nice house and car and good clothes and someday I want a family. I\u2019m not going to get those things through school in Indonesia. There are too many students and I don\u2019t like school much, anyway, and am going to do what I want. I\u2019m going to be a professional fighter right now, at age fifteen. I\u2019ve been fighting for years in the streets and gyms and am confident some day people are going to say Tubagus Sakti is a great champion. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m ready for the journey and not worried I lose my first fight by decision. I think it\u2019s a bad one and prove it my next fight by outpointing the same guy, Louis Lomeli, and I stop the one after that in the second round. So what it\u2019s the guy\u2019s first fight? I\u2019m on my way and beat Lomeli again and next have a twelve round draw I think I win. Now I\u2019m fighting Lomeli for the fourth time in six pro fights but he wins a unanimous decision.<\/p>\n
Some people say, Tubagus, that guy\u2019s record is only four and six. Boxers who\u2019re going to be champions don\u2019t lose to guys like him.<\/p>\n
Look, I\u2019m only sixteen, I say. I\u2019m going to get a lot stronger and better. But I worry they\u2019re right. I try to find a good job. What can an uneducated guy my age do in Indonesia or anywhere else? I keep going to the gym. For nine months I improve my skills all the time, and in January 2013 I say, damn right, I\u2019m seventeen and ready to fight Ichal Tobida. He began as a pro in 2005, when I was nine-years old, and stopped his first two opponents and five of the initial ten, but he lost four of those fights, and starting in 2010 dropped six of seven, three by technical knockout. I know I can take him. He\u2019s twenty-eight and getting old for a light flyweight. <\/p>\n
\tI\u2019m very aggressive, and so\u2019s he. We beat hell out of each other. And in the eighth round I\u2019m still attacking and sometimes backing him up with power punches and sense my status rising, if I can take him out. He\u2019s tough, though. I think he may be a little stronger than I am. Really, I know he is. He\u2019s loading up on everything now. Hard right crosses and wide left hooks force me back across the ring and into the corner where he nails me some more and I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a reflex or common sense but I shoot both my arms straight up in surrender, and he hits me with a jab and powerful right cross, forcing my arms down before I again raise them straight up and get hit with another jab and grazed by a straight right. Finally, the referee stops it. The idiot should\u2019ve stepped in first time my hands went up: don\u2019t shoot.<\/p>\n
\tTobida tries to hit me again but can\u2019t get past the referee. I sort of look okay. I\u2019m standing. I\u2019m walking away to my right but not feeling well. Really, I\u2019m not feeling anything. I\u2019m convulsing on the floor and my eyes are eerie and gone and soon I\u2019m in the hospital, dead from a brain hemorrhage. <\/p>\n
\tI don\u2019t follow boxing much anymore but can tell you a really tough guy with a sixty and three record stops Ichal Tobida his next fight. And in his most recent fight, guess who he beats: Leo Lomeli, the guy I fought four times. Leo\u2019s record is now four and ten and he isn\u2019t going to make a living in the ring, and neither is Tobida, but that\u2019s all right. Guys like us entertain the fans, and that\u2019s what counts. <\/p>\n