The next day I am back in training again, and the big barn which Nate had fitted up as a first-class gym was packed to the doors every afternoon. Mr. Brock drops around in a few days to watch me work out, and he's as friendly toward me as he ever was now that I'm going through with the fight. Besides Knockout Kelly, Tommy O'Ryan, and Two-Punch Jackson, which helped condition me as usual, I got a couple of fast lightweights down from New York to box with for speed.
I figured it was high time I paid more attention to the scientific end of the game, feeling that I'd been taking too much punishment and too many unnecessary chances in my fights through my willingness to trade punches. I wanted to avoid getting cut up in the future. The rough and tough stuff was all right when I was a preliminary boloney, but now that I was a champion I wanted to fight like a champion and not like a longshoreman on a dock.
Nate, however, yelled murder about my method of training for Martin. I ought to devote all my time to developing my punch, says Nate, and leave the boxing run for the end book.
"You're a prize fighter and not no chorus girl, and it don't make no difference whether you get marked up or not, as long as you win!" Nate tells me. "I don't like to see you learnin' so much about gettin' away from punches—you can't knock anybody dead by back pedalin' all over the ring. You got a poisonous wallop, and I don't want you to sacrifice it to speed. I've saw dozens of guys which was natural hitters like you lose
