Be a Champion: Free Advice from the Heavyweight Champion of the World<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
by Walter Martin
 
A few years ago I became friends with Rocky Marciano, the undefeated Heavyweight Champion of the World.  I met him at an airport, struck up a conversation, and we became friends.  I witnessed to him and we talked quite a bit.  I learned to box when I was in school because I came from a rough neighborhood in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Brooklyn.  In my neighborhood, there were two kinds of people: the quick and the dead!  If you weren't quick, you were dead.  I'm a survivor, praise God!  He came from the same kind of neighborhood, so we had a lot in common.
One night, while eating a spaghetti dinner at 3:00 a.m. (I was his houseguest for the weekend), we were chatting about some problems of boxing and I said to him, "You know, there was one thing that always bothered me about you, Rock.  I could never figure it out.  I've watched all the great fighters of the century, and I could never understand why you let yourself get hit so many times.  You've been hit more times than any heavyweight champion in history.  It looked like you were begging for it!"
He smiled and said, "Good question!  No one ever asked me that question before.  I'm going to give you the answer.  Stand up and square off with me."
"Oh, no," I said, "crazy I might be-stupid, I'm not.  No thanks!"
"We're not going to do anything," he laughed, "just square off."
So, we squared off.  "Okay," he said, "put out a left jab.  Don't hit me,
just put it out."
I stretched out my arm and lightly touched his chin with my fist.  He said, "Now, watch."
He was in his cover-up style of boxing, the "Peek-a-boo" style he was famous for, and he shot his left out at me as hard as he could.  If he'd hit me with that I'd have gone through the wall, but because my reach was five inches longer than his, the powerful punch just arced beneath my arm.  He couldn't even touch me.
"If I was fighting a guy like you, Walt," he said, "and you could hit anywhere near as hard as I could, you would annihilate me.  I'd never get close enough to hit you.  I learned that long ago, so I developed a style: cover-up, peek-a-boo.  I took the blows on my arms, my shoulders, and sometimes on my face-five, six, seven, eight to one-because I knew if I could get in close enough, I could take them out with one shot."  And he could; all he needed was the one shot.
All of a sudden a light went on in my head, and I said, "Praise the Lord!"
"What are you praising the Lord for?"  he asked.
"You gave me a fabulous sermon illustration.  I'm going to make that illustration famous!"
"Well, what is it?"
"You accepted the occupational hazard of getting hit, in order that you might be a champion."
You and I have to accept the occupational difficulty, and all of the occupational problems that come with the Christian witness.  Get in close with the Word of God, whatever it takes.  No matter how much punishment you have to endure or whatever they may say about you, get in close until you get the one clean shot that will take anybody out.  It's God's shot and God's gospel.