Tolen wins fight in Vegas

By Ken Johnston
Editor

For one individual, “What happened in Vegas did not stay in Vegas!” He ended up taking home some ink in the form of a Canadian Flag tattooed on his backside!
That was the price he paid for losing a fight on Easter weekend to Rainy River’s Robert Tolen. The two round match had a bet on the line. The loser would get the their opponent’s flag tattooed on their butt.
The fight was the culmination of months of trash talking on the internet and on the Jason Ellis satellite radio show Faction 28.
Tolen, 38, began listening to the show last year and became intrigued by it and its followers. After overcoming his lack of computer literacy he joined the chat rooms affiliated with Faction 28 and quickly became part of the trash talking.
A man from Duluth, MN., Scott or Sniper as he is known in the chat rooms threw out a challenge to fight someone, anyone, even a Canadian! Tolen bit. He agreed to fight Snipe but then the trick was to get Ellis’s attention and put them on the card for Ellismania 5 in Las Vegas Easter weekend. That is where the tattoo idea came and soon the challenge was a reality.
Tolen began training, created a facebook page and a Twitter account. He developed quite a following which lead to 16 people that personally know him travelling to Vegas to watch the fight.
Tolen arrived in Vegas on April 1, 2010 and watched the radio show broadcast from a bar there.
While the rest of us were enjoying a holiday on Good Friday, he was attending weigh-ins for the fight. Sniper went first, coming in at 177 lbs. “He was heavier than me before so I was worried that he was in better shape than me. I was concerned, thinking he must have really trained hard,” said Tolen.
Tolen weighed in at 176 lbs. but knew he had an advantage in reach.
On a radio interview Tolen said he had brought some real Canadian maple syrup and was going to say, “Here is a taste of what’s coming your way (to Sniper).” But Tolen decided not to play that card at the last minute, being a bit nervous being on the radio for the first time.
That night Tolen also went up on stage with Ellis’s band and sang a song. Another first for him. “They did not boo me off stage so it couldn’t have been to bad!” Tolen also flew for the first time on this trip. “It was definitely a trip of firsts for me!”
He also had no previous experience boxing, but his research paid off when he and Sniper stepped into the ring on Saturday, April 3, 2010.
They were the first match of the night and it was at about 10 p.m. central time.
It was billed as Canada vs. the U.S. and there was a great deal of hype before the fight. Boo’s echoed through the crowd of 3,000 as Tolen, or Ref as he is known on line, entered. But that was later replaced by Go Canada Go cheers! “There were more than my friends there from Canada and I heard them!”
Tolen proudly wore shorts with the Canadian maple leaf on them and his opponent wore a U.S. pre-fight robe which drew him cheers!
While the crowd was so loud Tolen could not hear his fight song (Rock you by Helix), he said the noise did not phase him. He had been carefully preparing himself for the experience. He walked around the night before and saw the stage. Before the fight he also went outside and saw the lines of people. It helped him feel more at ease with the big event just ahead of him.
Ref and Sniper faced off for two rounds and both wore head gear. In the first 30 seconds it looked like Tolen was going to be beaten and beaten badly. Sniper came out with a flurry of punches. “He was fighting like a drunken sailor!” But Tolen bided his time and Sniper quickly burned out. As his opponent tired, his swings became less accurate and wide like a haymaker. That gave Tolen a chance to jab him in the nose. “As soon as he let off I hit him a couple of times in the nose.” He kept working that throughout the fight.
His ringside attendants were former Bergland resident Billy Olson and one of his chat room acquaintances from Vegas known as White Rabbit. “They kept telling me to hit him a couple of times and then step off. It worked well!”
There was a one minute break between rounds and then Sniper came out strong like he did in the first round, only this time he ran out of steam even sooner. “He came out swinging in the first ten seconds then gassed out,” said Tolen.
Tolen kept working the nose and by the end of round two Sniper’s nose would not stop flowing. Tolen was ruled the winner, but because of the bleeding nose, Sniper did not have his Canadian Flag tattoo done ringside. Tolen said they took him upstairs to work on his nose. “It took 45 minutes for them to get the bleeding to stop. Then he got his tattoo!” He later returned to the ring to show off his new tattoo.
Tolen said that at the end of the fight the large Canadian contingent began singing Canada’s national anthem. Tolen said he was just stoked! With adrenaline flowing he was tempted to call out a fight with Benji Madden, but later when he thought about was glad he didn’t. “He trains professionally and it would likely not have been a good outcome for me!”
Tolen spent the rest of the weekend enjoying Vegas and even got to meet a celebrity named Tony Hawk of skateboarding fame. There were other celebs. there but that was the one he wanted to meet.
In reflecting on the experience last week, Tolen said, “If a person wants to do something just go do it. At 38 it seems crazy to go and fight but it was a great experience for me. Don’t let life pass you by!”
On the other hand, his wife, Rebecca, who had been supportive of the entire thing from the get go, said, “I was really nervous. I had to look away because I thought he was going to get hurt!”
Will he do it again? Tolen said he would do it again but if he does he will get some professional training. “I was lucky my opponent did not have the training others had at Ellismania.
Last week on the radio show Ellis said it was, “All Canada” when referring to the fight!