Dr. Akash Sharma was always fond of boxing and his love for the sport started when he was in school. Akash says that once he won a major match, there was no looking back.
“Along with my studies, I used to participate in university and school sports competitions, in which boxing was my main sport. I really enjoyed doing all this. To be a good athlete in any sport, hard work is very important. For this, I used to practice regularly with good coaches, 4 hours a day and I always used to win,” he says.
He adds, “I trained hard for professional boxing and when I had my first professional boxing battle, it was with a Ukrainian pro boxer and I won that fight in the 2nd round by knockdown. I felt very happy to get such a start and then I decided not to look back. When I started my preparation, I prepared for professional boxing. Usually professional boxing is very difficult. Any difficulty is there until you face it and end that difficulty. I used to do amateur boxing during school and college time but There is a difference between these two pro boxing and amateur boxing. Amateur boxing is a variant of boxing practiced at the collegiate level, at the Olympic Games, Pan American Games and Commonwealth Games, as well as many associations. Amateur boxing bouts are short in duration, comprising three rounds of three minutes in men, and four rounds of two minutes in women, each with a one-minute interval between rounds. Men’s senior bouts changed in format from four two-minute rounds to three three-minute rounds. Olympic boxing matches are short and include fewer rounds than pro matches. The duration of the match is the same for both men and women. Boxers compete for three rounds where each round is three minutes long, and there is a 1-minute break between each round. Professional boxing bouts have a maximum of 12 rounds. The exact number of rounds is based on the skill level of both boxers, but the matches at the highest levels are always 12 rounds!”
The doctor says that he always got a lot of support. “Seeing all this, my friends and my family members used to support me a lot. My father’s dream was that I should become a professional athlete,” he says.
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Boxing isn’t recognised too much in India, says Akash, adding, “Boxing is liked in India, but at the professional level, it is not very famous here because people retire only after an immature career. And if I am talking about WWE, it uses scripted entertainment to put on wrestling shows. Each wrestler is a character on the show that follows a particular storyline. While certain parts follow a script, many other parts are real. That’s why people like it a lot here. In India too, gradually the spirit of sports is increasing among people. I can see that India has also progressed to a great extent in boxing, in which boys and girls have won many medals in the Olympics, world, Asia and Commonwealth.”