The last time he boxed at Emperors Palace, Roarke Knapp was knocked out.
As brutal as it was, the exciting junior middleweight has come to terms with the defeat and has processed it in the way you’d hope: with humility and good grace, owning up to his mistakes and talking openly about the moment that turned his world upside down.
“Look, it was very difficult,” he said on Thursday afternoon, mere hours removed from his final sparring session ahead of next week’s tournament at Emperors Palace. “Sitting on my stool, it felt surreal. It was my first world title shot and it had slipped through my fingers.”
Mexico’s Jorge Garcia Perez had stunned him with a third-round barrage that concluded with a sickening knockout, Knapp’s championship dream in tatters.
Four months on from that painful performance, Knapp is raring to go again. He continues to enjoy the support of promoter Rodney Berman and former world champion Brian Mitchell, working alongside trainer Vusi Mtolo, has guided him on tightening his defence.
This week, Mitchell paid Knapp a fine compliment, praising his high hands and good cover. It’s a habit he will do well to emulate against Adones Cabalquinto, who can punch and has more experience than the South African.
Knapp admits that it took around a month to both process and pack away the reality of his KO defeat. Part of this required him to own up to his mistakes.
“I felt I could hurt him,” he said in hindsight. “I got over-zealous. I made a slight error of judgment and paid the price. I was heartbroken.”
Part of his pain came in the rigid belief that he let himself and his family and friends down, and was better than what defeat made him appear.
“It wasn’t a reflection of my abilities and I don’t want that to define me. I have a child on the way . . . boxing is how I provide for my family, so it was a scary and difficult time.”
Knapp took solace in a range of people, not least his support structure, among them Berman, wife Shelby, a “huge pillar”, and many of his supporters.
“If you think too much about defeat, it grows, and if I lose control, I’ve got big problems,” he rationalises. “I’ve worked hard to get over it because if I don’t it will affect me in future. It still hurts, it still crosses my mind, but I’m over it.”
He sees now the error of simply wanting to get the fight over with rather than enjoy it, get it done in the manner required and simply breathe. “It’s not how it works,” he says, with obvious regret.
His plan in this coming fight is thus to be more patient, to bide his time, to feed off Mitchell’s advice and get back to his winning habit. At his best, he is Mister Excitement, a tattooed terror.
The curtain has now come down on sparring with the nine-week camp almost at its end. He’s had top-end work with the likes of Keanu Koopman, Patrick Mukala and Lebo Mashitoa, the cruiserweight.
Yet even at the tailend of the hard camp, Knapp was champing at the bit. “I felt incredible, energetic, crisp, sharp . . . I can’t wait to fight.”
He’s anticipating a good fight, aware that Cabalquinto has more rounds under his belt and can crack a fair bit.
Knapp is an Emperors Palace crowd favourite, and wants to please them.
“I’m grateful for them, for any love they show.”
Next week, he aims to repay their faith the only way he knows how – all heart, all action.
