How big is a dream?

You don’t expect an unusual story popping out of nowhere in a routine provincial boxing card. But when it grabs you, it affirms that sports truly lives in the world of the unpredictable.
Twenty-five-year-old Marc Minguillan had a stable job as a junior assistant manager at a Banco de Oro branch. If others found basketball, badminton or running as their fitness routine, Minguillan had boxing. He worked out at the Rod Nazario Wild Card gym in Parañaque to get a rigorous physical challenge.
Little did he know that the boxing bug would bite him hard.
Unlike others who fantasize to be a boxer while doing boxing drills, Minguillan decided to take his passion to another level. He decided to try pro boxing for real, got a license, and trained for his first professional fight.
A banking career looked like it could wait.
Minguillan’s baptism of boxing fire came last Saturday in Binangonan. In a fight card staged for the city’s fiesta, Minguillan was slated for a four-rounder against lanky Al Revira who had previously lost his pro debut.
It was passion coming face to face with the hard knocks of boxing.
The weekend boxing card is not entirely about fulfilling dreams but of making a living for the ring warriors. It’s about showing up for the fights that will put food on the table and milk in the mouths of babes. It’s about validating if the hours spent sweating in smelly gyms were worth it or if one still had the goods to keep on fighting.
This is the world Minguillan stepped into and he needed a stellar performance to show that his own reasons for joining were just as valid.
Minguillan had a large group of family and friends who were genuinely supportive of this seemingly wild dream of climbing the ring. They roared lustily when Minguillian sent Revira to the canvass with a right straight.
Minguillian had good balance and a decent pair of fighting hands that did make him look like a ring gladiator.
But then the painful boxing lesson of “protect yourself at all times” hit Minguillian hard in the third round. Revira recovered and uncorked a swift combination that startled Minguillan.
The neophyte had a cut on his lip and stopped momentarily to check it and regain his bearings. Referee Virgilio Garcia did not order a break because there was no clinch and the fight was in full swing.
That brief moment of carelessness was all Revira needed to pummel the defenseless Minguillan. Garcia stopped the fight and ended Minguillan’s first brush with ring reality.
Stunned and frustrated as he stepped out of the ring, Minguillan explained to this reporter he thought there was a break. The friends and family who were moments ago jubilant and boisterous were too numb to say anything and merely stood around for the much-needed morale boost.
The boxing regulars in the crowd offered meek advice that Minguillan should never let his guard down in a fight, no matter what.
When the fight card proceeded and Minguillan was left alone with his dream, he whispered that he would fight again.   Boxing history will probably not be kind to Minguillan and forget his foray into the ring. But he can claim that he did something to make his dream happen