The Mayor of Ritchot has a black eye and maybe a bit of a bruised ego, but Chris Ewen has only good things to say about a charity boxing event he fought in over the weekend.
Ewen competed in Fight for Charity on Saturday at the Winnipeg Convention Centre. He was one of about 24 boxers that hit the ring that night in support of the Canadian Mental Health Association.
Ewen spent three months training for the event, shaving off 45 pounds in the process. Ewen, who has boxed in the past, says he had not been inside the ring in about 10 years and so it took some effort to get back into shape. He trained between six and eight times per week, sometimes hitting the gym two or three times in a single day.
Ewen's opponent was Connor Sutherland, a firefighter with the city of Winnipeg. He says it was a good bout with the two going head-to-head for three rounds.
"If no one has ever gone into a boxing ring and you are waiting to get punched it's nothing that you expect, that's for sure," he describes. "You forget what it's like to get hit in the face and then you just got to either fight or flight."
Ewen says he broke his opponent's nose early on and was probably the better of the two boxers in that first round. But, by the third round, Ewen admits he was getting beat pretty good and the ref stopped the fight.
"I think there was maybe 20 seconds left and the ref looked at me and counted me down and she said, 'I got to stop the fight for safety reasons,'" he recalls.
Ewen says the atmosphere was electric Saturday night inside that room. He says the crowd was crazy and it almost felt like spectators were trying to crawl into the ring.
"We had tonnes of people there supporting me and tonnes of people supporting the opponent," says Ewen. "So for Connor Sutherland, the guy that beat me, you are a true champion and an athlete and congratulations."
Ewen adds there was a lot of blood, headaches, bruising and a black eye, but notes it was all for a great cause and says he would do it all over again for the Canadian Mental Health Association. He says the boxers alone raised nearly $50,000 that night.
He notes, not only was the three months of training a great way to get in shape, but Ewen says he thinks he is a different person mentally today.
"I feel better, my mind feels clearer when I'm exercising like that," he says. "My sleeping is better."
In addition to that, Ewen says he is also now a little bit more comfortable sharing his struggles with other people.
"The mental health aspect for the exercise regime was a huge part of this and I couldn't be any more thankful for the organizers at Fight for Charity to get me involved with that," he explains. "It was an amazing thing."
Meanwhile, Ewen says as much as he would love to continue boxing, it is probably wise that he now hangs up the boxing gloves.
"I'd love to continue fighting in amateur boxing," he admits. "My wife specifically told me that I will never do it again, it was too much for her. So I think that probably will be my boxing career."
Ewen clarifies that as invested as he was in the training aspect, it was the six minutes inside the ring Saturday night that was just a little too much for his wife and family.
