'Break a leg', warns contender
BEFORE discovering kickboxing, Robert Glasson-Wilesmith was a rugby league player.
"I got into kick-boxing because, being a front rower, I had no agility or flexibility," he said.
"I thought I'd give it a crack so I could side-step."
After a few months' training, his coach suggested he have his first real fight.
"I broke the guy's femur with my first kick," Glasson-Wilesmith said.
He reckons he has broken about 15 people's legs in his career and it is the weapon he will rely heavily on in his world title bout against Mike Sheppard in December.
"I've got rock hard shins because I kick poles all day," Glasson-Wilesmith said.
His ring name is Thunder Legs.
"I hope he's got some very hard legs because he's going to get banged," Glasson-Wilesmith said of Sheppard.
"I've got the beast in there.
"I want to unleash it in the ring.
"I told (trainer) Len (Norman), 'I'll do anything you want me to. I don't care if I'm on one leg, I'll do it'."
"And he does do it," Norman said.
"He's got discipline.
"A fighter's got to have discipline and a sense of worth. It's a brutal sport. We have got a lot of young blokes who haven't got that heart."
Norman thought Glasson-Wilesmith mad when he asked to get him ready for a world title fight.
Now he knows he's mad - it was a prerequisite.
"This bloke, up and down these hills around here," Norman says, looking out across Limestone Park's steep inclines.
"And he's done that."
