No exceptions.

Readers of my FNT posts might find them a bit solipsistic. After all, the posts are usually about my fights, my problems, how I felt, and so on. If anybody finds them to be overly self-indulgent, well, they haven't said. But with that said, where else can I be self-indulgent if not in the "pages" of my personal blog?

But my imaginary critics raise a valuable point. Looking over the FNT entry for this past Friday, you would have no idea that a scrappy, never-say-die underdog (in the form of Cheechin Doobie) racked up his first win against a previously undefeated opponent (Allison Tobias). You would not have learned that untested first-timer Marcello Pausch narrowly defeated lightweight champion Pipp McDonnell (now former champion, but that's another story) in a non-title match, or that another fighter making her debut that night, Stacey Kanto, made her mark with a KO win over the more experienced Angel Tedeschi. Highlights, all, and worthy of mention.

You also wouldn't know of the evening's "lowlight", which is the point of this particular post: Our first ever disqualification. The fighter in question was a lightweight who was using techniques forbidden to his weight class. After a verbal warning and restarting the first round, the fighter persisted in his actions and the match was stopped.

Karine, the coaching staff, and I have been making an extra effort this past week to make sure the rules for boxing at Averlast are well known. In addition to verbal reinforcement during the week's sparring sessions, the rules for lightweights, middleweights, and heavyweights are posted at the forums, with a group notice sent out to make sure everyone knows that they're there.

Since their posting, they've gotten all of twelve views, collectively.

These rules weren't put in place to ruin anybody's fun. Quite the opposite, in fact. They're meant to ensure fair fights and keep the playing field for each weight class (and between weight classes) level. And regardless as to whether or not everyone knows them, they will be uniformly enforced.

And if this somehow riles some deep libertarian streak within the reader, suspicious of burdensome regulation, I advise a quick look at the real world. The WBC has a book of rules and regulations that, by comparison, make Averlast's rules look like breezy, easy reading.