It was all going so well. Confetti rained on the Patriot Center crowd. The ring girls leading the ringside entourage were hot. The rap song irked the opponent. More than 5,000 fans chanted his name. It was a perfect moment for J.P. Flaim of “The Junkies.”
Too bad the fight had to start.
And too bad it ended so quickly.
Flaim fell one second short of making it to the second round in his pro boxing debut Saturday, a TKO loss to Jay Watts. The radio co-host of “The Junkies” weekday mornings on WJFK was knocked down four times, including one brutal left hook that created a “quick room-spinning moment.” The referee finally stopped the fight.
“The pressure of the moment got to me,” Flaim said. “The atmosphere, the energy was off the charts and then in an instant the fight started. There was no transition time. I never got into the flow of the fight.”
Seven weeks of training vanished courtesy of a Watts jab. Flaim mistakenly went straight at Watts from the start and the latter offered no mercy. Watts was returning to the ring after a prison stint and a 1-8 career mark meant this was the last chance to resurrect his career.
“[Flaim] got real aggressive real quick,” Watts said. “One thing I was not going to do was allow this guy to get any momentum or confidence. I wanted him to taste my power.
“I could see I was hurting him with everything I was hitting him with. I asked the referee to stop the fight because I was going to hurt him. J.P. was a nice guy that I didn’t want to hurt.”
The fight was nearly cancelled. Flaim’s father-in-law, David McMunn, died suddenly on Dec. 6. With the funeral on Sunday, Flaim thought about staying with his wife as family arrived on Saturday. Instead, Flaim decided to dedicate the fight to the World War II veteran with a 10-bell salute ringside for McMunn.
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t deliver the win,” Flaim said. “If I had a chance to go back to the corner I could have calmed down and got back to basics. … That one round of experience would make a world of difference in another fight.”
But there won’t be another fight. Flaim realized it was too stressful on his family. He’ll settle for knowing he didn’t get too beat up himself and cut Watts’ eye with a couple jabs that prompted loud “J.P.” chants from the partisan crowd.
“I’d love to do it again. I know I’d do better,” Flaim said. “[But] the torture I put through my mom and mother-in-law and wife and some friends is probably too much.”
Rick Snider has covered local sports for 28 years. Contact him at [email protected].
