Lots of people see Carl Frampton obtaining great success but they fail to understand all the hard work he has had to put in to get where he is now. He has been training hard and fighting since he was a little boy, his career is actually about approx 18 years long, so far.

Great success brings great pitfalls. There are always ruthless, cynical people ready to take advantage of naive athletes and sportsmen.

Plus, no matter how good any athlete or sportsman is, there is always someone, faster, stronger, more skilfull or more brutal.

It is a big mistake to think the Biblical characters were ancient figures who did not have the skills  we have today.  Many of them were highly trained, skilfull soldiers with a high degree of psychical prowess.

They knew all about close combat skills, both defensive and offensive.  In the portion of the Bible below we are introduced to Joab. He was David`s nephew and the General of David`s troops.  Joab was also very ruthless, cunning, an expert on fighters and a fixer of fights.  He rigged the fight below, it was a contest between 12 of David`s champions and twelve champions of David`s rival.

Twelve of the fighters thought they were entering a “fair fight,” Joab rigged the whole thing and they were quickly killed. “Helkathhazzurim” means “Field of swords” it is thought the actual place were the rigged fight took place is in the picture below.

2 Samuel 2:14-16
14 And Abner said to Joab, Let the young men now arise, and play before us. And Joab said, Let them arise.
15 Then there arose and went over by number twelve of Benjamin, which pertained to Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and twelve of the servants of David.
16 And they caught every one his fellow by the head, and thrust his sword in his fellow’s side; so they fell down together: wherefore that place was called Helkathhazzurim, which is in Gibeon.

The same scenario also featured a champion runner called Asahel. He was famous for his running skills. Going from what the Bible tells us about Asahel, we can deduce he put great trust in his own abilities and he was very ambitious. He was eager to claim a big scalp for himself.

Unfortunately for him, the scalp he wanted to claim was that of a hardened, ruthless soldier called Abner.  Abner tried to warn the younger man he was treading on dangerous ground, he gave him three warnings but the younger man Asahel would not listen. So Abner suddenly killed him with the cunning jab of the rear end of a spear.

The death of Asahel was such a public shock that the spot were he was killed became a place of great astonishment. Most people never suspected that Asahel could loose a race or a fight?

It is like I said earlier, no matter how good any athlete or sportsman is, there is always someone, faster, stronger, more skilfull or more brutal. Every competitive athlete, sportsman and champion knows how true this is.

2 Samuel 2:23 Howbeit he refused to turn aside: wherefore Abner with the hinder end of the spear smote him under the fifth rib, that the spear came out behind him; and he fell down there, and died in the same place: and it came to pass, that as many as came to the place where Asahel fell down and died stood still.