JT3

There is something about the purity of old-school boxing. It teaches you more than a set of technical skills. It teaches you how to remain focused despite exhaustion, and to stick with a game plan even while getting battered. Most of all, it teaches you the value of discipline and hard work. I beat Patrick Brazeau in that ring because I had a better team behind me, I had a better plan, and I had trained harder to make that plan a reality. (I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about whether or not that approach applies to politics.)

A week before the fight, Matt Whitteker, my trainer in Ottawa, asked about my fight plan. I told him how I thought it would go: Brazeau would throw everything he had at me early. I’d spend the first round keeping him away with my jab and reach, and let him tire himself out. By the second round I’d have more gas than him and take the initiative, and perhaps in the third round I’d go for the knockout. Matt smiled at my confidence and teased, “Oh, you’ll wait till the third round to knock him out, will you?” We both knew full well that KOs rarely happen in Olympic-style amateur boxing, and if there was one, the smart money was on Brazeau delivering it.

But as it turned out, that’s pretty much what happened. Brazeau came out in a frenzy from the start, and in the first half of the first round he landed a number of huge overhand rights that had me reeling and wondering if I’d made a terrible miscalculation. But just as I was beginning to wonder how much more I could take, he stopped landing those big punches.

I could hear him huffing and puffing, and suddenly I was connecting my punches and swatting away his. I ended that first round with a smile on my face, because I knew it was already over. He’d given me his all, and I could take it, and now I was going to win. By the third round Brazeau had had enough. When I scored a third standing eight-count in that final round, the referee ended it. It was a TKO, or technical knockout, not a true knockout perhaps, but under Olympic rules it was the best outcome I could expect.