By Robert Mueller
Photo courtesy of House of Pain East Facebook
Robert McMinn’s boxing career is no mean feat and stands as a testament to his dedication and perseverance. Robert McMinn is an 11th grader at Golden High School, and over seven years of boxing, he has had 348 total fights and 305 wins for an 88% win rate, he also placed in the top 12 at the Jeffco 2023 boxing comp. Robert’s most satisfying fight was against a tough opponent named Dyson McConroy. Dyson couldn’t stop talking, he was a 5 foot 9 fighter with short dreads. He spent the first seven rounds drilling into Robert’s head with trash talk and smothering him with punches. He was suffering under the crushing weight of the punches and trash talk, but through the chaos of the match, he saw a glimmer of hope as McConroy moved back to hit Robert
with a hook. Robert saw an opportunity and took it. When McConroy dropped back, Robert moved up, slipped his guard, and hit him with a nasty liver shot. McConroy instantly went quiet, the trash talking stopped, his eyes wide, reeling, still processing what happened. Still in a daze from the first punch, Robert took advantage of his dazed state to move in for an uppercut, which sent him flying onto the canvas.
At sixteen, Robert stepped into the amateur ring many times. In 2023, he fought 134 matches, showing a relentless pace, sometimes fighting up to five times a week. The trouble showed up years ago when he was fourteen, sitting in the locker room preparing himself for the regional finals to come, a cold towel pressed against his head, trying to do something for his splitting migraine. His coach walked into the locker room to wrap his hands for the upcoming match. His coach gave him a word of advice, which was, “Control the round, but don’t push yourself”. Robert made quick work of his opponent, finishing him off with a right cross, but while his opponent took a knee, he went to the medical tent. This headache was splitting his head in half, making it impossible to focus on anything, and it was taking its toll on his fighting ability. This eventually became a bigger problem in 2024 during a match against a man named Elijah Torres, when Robert got into the ring with his head raging. He was not able to think about anything except the headache, and his body turned to instinct and after taking a crushing headbutt, which only made his headache worse, he started to get aggressive. Now aggravated by this brain melting headache, he backed Torres into a turnbuckle with a combo of punches that ended up breaking Torres’s nose.
That was the first time that the gym board had ever thought it might not be safe to have Robert in the ring. The final nail in the coffin was when Robert was sent against Mateo Cruz, he dominated from the start, dropping Cruz twice with counter blows from the right. Between rounds, Robert was in visual distress, holding his temples, unable to hear anything over the roaring in his head. The next round ended in forty four seconds, and this was now his sixty second knockout of the year and the breaking point for his boxing career. He now stands by the side entrance of his gym, looking through the reinforced glass at the punching bags. His wraps are still in his bag that now sits forgotten. As Robert and his coach sit on the street watching the cars driven by his coach, the seriousness of the situation is put on him. And tells him he has more power than a fifteen year old knows how to handle, and until he can get himself and his health conditions under control, his boxing career is on hold.
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