Iron Kid
BACKSTORY
Many years has passed since his death and I still get asked about him, his fight record, his children and modern-day descendants. Sometimes I learn things about him that make me laugh. I wanted to tell about him long ago, but when I gave up dogfighting I did not rake over old coals, as I was sure it would be of no interest to anyone. For some reason the interest has been renewed. This may be because of Kid’s 19-point ROM title and the fairly good fight records of his descendants.
I will try to give a little more detail about Kid, and the events that took place over a quarter of a century ago. For some people it is “ancient history”. For me, it is as if it was only yesterday. In old age, memories are more vivid than impressions.
We got Kid in the summer of 1992 (Victor Mishchenko – my friend and I, we were a team). At that time we had four dogs from Yugoslavia. Tex, Fanat, Grafinia and Gina.
Tex and Gina lived in my apartment. Tex is a 26-kilo handsome and clever dog. He won four fights. Back then we didn’t make arrangements for a match in advance. We would go to a tournament in Donetsk, and pairs were matched on the spot. Sergey Mglinets was the organiser and manager. Later we travelled to Donetsk with Kid, but I am getting ahead of myself.
I have a good memory of the day when I saw Kid for the first time. My friend Viktor and I were in Moscow at the time and we went to see Anatoly Chuikin. I remember a small black male with short cropped ears who was resting after a hard fight. His name was Black or Blackie. We liked him a lot and shared that it would be nice to have such a cool dog. And so we came to Oleg Gulyakov, who helped us with the purchases of our first real pit bulls. We saw a mighty dog with a lot of scars all over his body. Oleg told us that the dog had lost his last fight very decently; it was his fourth fight, although the dog was not very old – just over 2 years.
There was no question of selling it at that time. I remember sitting on a sofa teasing that dog and he pinched my side with his incisors quite sensitively. I automatically slapped him on the face. Oleg exclaimed in horror: “Vitya! What are you doing?!” “What’s wrong?” I asked bewilderedly. “He’s going to kill you,” said Oleg. And the dog was lying on the sofa, wiggling with all four legs like a mischievous puppy. “Don’t do that again!” Oleg said calmly. I realized how right he was only a year later.
Some time later, in Moscow, at Oleg’s house Viktor and I met Tsuna (Gojkovic). At that time we were negotiating the prospects of purchasing Kid.
Looking ahead, I was surprised to hear Tsuna say that, apart from the lost fight and the video with King (Stevan Black King), Kid had had no combat contact. However, it was Tsuna who demonstrated and commented on Kid’s three fights. And Oleg was very reluctant to let me watch the last, lost fight. At that time I did not yet understand and did not see the fights as I understand and see them now. I remember well that the emphasis was on the game. Yes, Kid did his apologetic scratch, after he spent almost the whole fight, not counting the first 10-15 minutes, lying on the mat almost dead. That is probably why they sold him to us, not expecting a full recovery. Beside, his aggression towards humans, which luckily manifested itself only in moments of direct provocation, but which, unfortunately, he also passed on to some of his children. The dog that beat him, Ro by name, according to Oleg was Kid’s relative. Before his fight with Kid, Ro had a great fight with a dog named Cerny (Black) of the Rascal line, and won very competently.
It was only after some time, after a series of trials and errors, that I realised what a unique dog we had got. His ability to recover was astounding. The day after the fight with Gipsy, Kid looked perfectly healthy and he was mating with a bitch (Inka, his daughter by Grafinia). Immediately after the fight with Homer, he kept bouncing under the table, asking for a tasty treat. Therefore, I am not surprised, that he had four (!!!) fights in one year, not counting roles. The first fight was at the age of 12 months with a white dog of the Snooty line. The recording on a YHS tape was terrible. The fight lasted over an hour. The opponent, according to Oleg and Tsuna, did not survive. The next fight was one and a half or two months later (By the way, this fight is on YouTube) and another one, about which I can’t say anything, because I have not watched the video, although Oleg assured me that he has the tape. This is a reference to the question why some sources say Kid had 7 wins, and others say 10 wins. And plus the lost fight.
Kid came to Gomel in late summer or early autumn, I don’t remember exactly. Initially, he lived with Viktor Mishchenko in a flat. There were two children in the family – the eldest Stas and the one-year-old Yegor. After an unpleasant incident (Kid snapped at Victor’s wife Irina) he was moved to an enclosure at Victor’s parents’ private house. Then I began training him. At that time Kid weighed 25-26 kilos. There was no any serious training. But I took him for long walks, often even together with Gina or Grafinia. The local dog breeder used to gather in the yard of the service dog club back then, and even small skirmishes occurred. Ashamed to admit it, it was there where Kid made his teeth familiar with the taste of a bull terrier and a Staffordshire terrier. Both times it did not last more than a minute. I remember they would let visit dress consume parties, too. It’s ridiculous to talk about it now, but it is what it is.
- The pit bull movement was slowly gaining momentum. There were good fighters in Ukraine. Moscow, too, considered itself a trendsetter, as usual. But there were no pit bulls weighing less than 22kg. Mostly 26-32kg. And even the term “pit weight” was familiar, but was considered as something abstract, rather than necessary.
There were some battle tournaments in Minsk. Certainly not of the same level as in Donetsk, where thanks to Sergey Mglinets there were regular meetings attended by a lot of fight fans. But still, in Minsk we were frequent guests. At the beginning of the year my Tex won his third fight there. We went to Minsk with Kid in late autumn.
Kid’s opponent was Chuck from Ivano-Frankovsk. His son Karay later became a 5-time winner in the hands of a very competent and responsible person, Ruslan Kogutyak, who is now deceased. It is thanks to Ruslan, who was able to unite people who are not indifferent to the breed, that Ivano-Frankivsk now has a good population of very high quality dogs. The fight took place on the premises of a cafe. Nobody knew the exact rules. The fight lasted about half an hour and ended, if I may say so, in a RSC decision. But what I remember perfectly is that I saw the flaws in the Kid’s performance resulting from his being overweight. Victor gave Kid to me on January 3, 1994, I remember it vividly. That’s when my real work with him began. Thanks to Richard Stratton, whose book I translated with the help of friends, and the increasingly close communication with the pit bull breeders, as well as my own past experience working with the Caucasian, Asian, Southern breeds and their mestizos, I have developed my own vision for a dog’s combat weight, which I have followed to this day. Looking back, I have to say that it was not without mistakes and kinks. I started increasing the training pressure on Kid, while cutting back on food.
Now I know that I did a lot of unnecessary things in training and in losing weight quickly and rigidly. Kid stood up to everything! I didn’t have a weigh-scale at the time, I was guided by the looks and behaviour. Tugging a skier in knee-deep snow, with me running in front, my wife on skis with the Kid on a leash. Then we change places. We would throw a stick to each other at a distance of 25-30 m, Kid running between us. We had to store up several sticks. If he managed to snatch the stick before it was picked up by me or my wife, it was useless to try taking it away! A fishing rod with bait in the form of an ear from an old hat with earflaps. Kid caught it and gobbled it up. I tried to take it away, but it didn’t work. It’s a good thing he could get attracted to everything. A bundle of dry grass dug out from under the snow made excellent bait. I didn’t use a bungee cord. Tried it once and that was it. I couldn’t get it away, even with an unclenching device. It’s a long story, and it doesn’t matter now. In the end, having made sure of its dried appearance, I went to weigh him. The scale showed 20kg and 200g. I got just stunned. Got too carried away by the training process.
I began to curse myself for being a wrecker and started letting him slowly put on weight. I remember that in Moscow, during my conversation with Tsuna and Oleg, they talked about 22.5 kilos. That was Kid’s weight at the time when he lost the fight. But he looked and moved perfectly. We were going to take part in another fight to Donetsk.
February 1994. Before this trip his weight was 21kg and 200g. He was as if on springs and did not look exhausted. (Now we often see such things).
To be continued
