Burke’s Blog: Trout hits Canada

Thursday June 25, 2009

By Louie Burke

Monday we started winding down Austin’s training for his Friday night fight in Canada, against Shawn Garnett. It was the last of his hard training and he looked good , sparring four rounds with Abie Han, for a total regiment of 15 rounds. The contracted weight is 156. Weigh-ins will be the day of the fight, which throws a wrench in the pasta dinner plans we always have, the night prior to the fight.

Tuesday, Austin trained a solid 12 rounds, he looked very sharp on the pads and best of all was weighing 155, one pound under weight. We’re not sure when we’ll get in another good workout so it was important that Austin make the weight prior to leaving. Furthermore, I didn’t want him to do any last minute dehydrating since the weigh-ins are the day of the fight. He’s right on schedule!

Wednesday, Murphy’s Law took into effect. We missed the flight which was at 6:55 due to an accident on the freeway. But someone up there likes Austin, and we arrived in Toronto at about 10:30 pm, all on standby flights routing us from El Paso to Dallas then to New York and finally to Toronto. Once in Toronto, we found out we still had a hour and a half drive to Casino Rama, where the fights are being held. We finally got in bed close to 1:00 am. Oh yea, our luggage was lost on the way. We’ll figure it out in the morning.

Thursday, we slept til 11:am, woke up and went to go weigh-in and eat breakfast. Austin’s feeling good and rested after the long journey we had yesterday. Most of the day was rest, small walks, a meeting with the commission, dinner and a light shake-out. They found our luggage, now Austin won’t have to go in the ring sin trunks. We actually went to Wal-Mart and bought some Jordan basketball style shorts, just in case.
Tomorrow the 8:00 weigh-in will be held across the street where were staying. After that we plan on eating a good breakfast, and resting and eating a lighter meal later on then again resting til fight time. Austin’s the semi-main and it will be televised on Canadian TV.

We’ve had the opportunity to study "film" or I should say DVD’s, that we were able to get from Dan Sisneros, who has an extensive collection of fight film or can get film on just about anybody. He’s been an invaluable asset to the PAL boxers, thanks a million.

Garnett being a southpaw, Austin needed southpaw sparring and boy he had some great sessions, with Jauquin Zomora, Abie Han, and Renee Armijo, who also graciously let us use his gym on several occasions. And of course, even though not southpaws Siju and Lil Sammy were thrown in the mix.

Even though not a title defense, Garnett is not taken lightly. He has some major upsets on the W side of his record. Garnett is strong and he does come in wide and with his head swinging wildly from side to side, which is a major concern that we’ve worked on in training to try and prevent any clash of heads during the bout. As Austin’s trainer I can say he’s ready and well prepared, if he preforms like he has in the gym then he should be 18-0 Friday night.
Thanks for your support.