My 68 seconds in the ring as a white-collar boxer

There was still a minute to go in round one when my opponent Rudy started hugging me. ‘Are you OK? Are you OK? I’m so, so sorry,’ he said, looking distraught. Then the doctor appeared, shoved an oxygen tank over my face and ordered me to lie flat on the canvas.

That was the moment when I realised that my plan to go from 56-year-old fitness nobody to superstar boxer in just three months hadn’t quite worked out. Yes, I had made it into the ring, in front of a raucous 700-strong crowd at the JW Marriott Marquis in Dubai. But could I make it out?

I made the decision to subject myself to this torture after two of my young children had moved back to live with me in Dubai, while the third child and my wife stayed on in South America to finish building our house there. I was surrounded by chaos, cupcakes and cappuccinos. Friends were already asking if I’d started planning for my 60th birthday, but all I could think about was my path towards diabetes, obesity and obscurity. I needed to do something drastic.

Boxing? Really? Over the course of my career in journalism I had met Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, George Foreman and Amir Khan. The intensity, the discipline, the brutality, the sacrifices – imagine living their lives for 12 weeks. At my age. It was a ridiculous, outrageous idea. Which is why I was so attracted to it.

White-collar boxing, which started in the 1990s with Wall Street bankers taking on each other in New York gyms, has become a phenomenon around the world’s financial centres, particularly London, Hong Kong and Singapore. You wear headguards, the rounds are shorter than in pro boxing, the gloves are 16oz (more padded), and as part of the course you need to watch Brad Pitt’s 1999 movie classic Fight Club.