I never thought watching someone with Down syndrome get power-punched in the face could be heartwarming. I was wrong.
Garrett Holeve is a 23-year-old MMA fighter with one amateur bout to his name. His match with “Monster” Mike Wilson was judged a draw, and he came out a little beat up but with no serious damage. Holeve works at an MMA gym where he teaches kids to box. He also has Down syndrome.
ESPN aired a segment over the weekend about Holeve’s story, from being a kid who grew up knowing he was different, to a teenager who had to go to different schools than others his age, and then a young man who wanted to fight. So that’s what he did. He put in time in the gym, and he got scraped up, grappled, cut weight and at the end of it all, he was staring another trained fighter in the eye, face-to-face, gloves on and ready to throw leather.
When Holeve stepped out into the center of the ring, he took a huge right hand straight to his face.
But he didn’t crumble or break down. He held his composure and did what he’d been training to do – fight.
Holeve’s father said people called him sick for letting his son fight, accusing him of exploiting Holeve and putting him at unnecessary risk. I say he’s a hero, because if he really wanted to, Holeve’s father could have prevented his son from fighting. He could have made a compelling argument as to why his son wasn’t ring-ready and should be barred from competition. But he didn’t.
Instead, he treated his son like a human being. He didn’t look at him like a disabled kid who needs to be coddled and protected from the real world. He honored his son’s decision and training and let him fight.
Holeve will never be a champion. He will never go pro, and there’s a good chance he might not be allowed to fight again. But he proved something that day.
He showed he is capable of so much more than people would like to believe, that he can stand and trade blows for 15 minutes and come out alive. He showed that he, and handicapped people like him, are as human as anyone else, just with a different set of circumstances.
Holeve may not be able to care for himself, but he cares enough about his life that he decided to do something with it.
For anyone to step in and say they know better, like so many tried to do, is sickening. The physical pain he accrued is nothing compared to the emotional pain he would have suffered knowing the world didn’t value and reward his efforts the same way it does other fighters.
Skeptics might say he didn’t understand the risk of what he was doing. But he didn’t just understand it – he lived it. In every sparring session and grappling match he felt firsthand what would happen in that fight.
If all that didn’t make him quit, why should anyone else force him to?
Daniel Serrano is a senior double major in English and journalism and a contributing writer for the Daily 49er.