Episode 1
1. Not a Dream
Height: 187cm
Weight: 101kg
Age: 32
Name: Yong Baekho
Profession: Combat sports athlete
Current situation: Retired due to joint injuries caused by excessive overtraining during his athletic high school days
There is no news more familiar than an athlete retiring due to injury.
Basically, it is even more so for combat sports. After all, you cannot fight with your body intact.
But what if the cause was incorrect training from a young age? Anyone would find that maddening.
‘It was the worst.’
On the small bed, a stiff new school uniform, pressed so thoroughly it seemed ironed, hung like a blade on the hanger beside the desk.
Baekho looked at the ceiling that gave him a sense of déjà vu. The moment he opened his eyes that morning, he understood the situation.
‘It started from middle school.’
Ever since middle school, Baekho had been a prodigious boxer who stood out from the crowd.
But due to conflict with the gym he attended, biased decisions and overtraining derailed his career.
Forced to turn professional, injuries constantly held him back. After becoming the Oriental Champion, he repeated victories and defeats until he eventually retired.
‘The professional boxing scene barely pays, after all.’
After retiring, he jumped into MMA, which was popular at the time, but it took a boxer a long time to adapt.
‘If you don’t count the first two wins, I lost six in a row, right?’
Baekho recalled the feeling with melancholy.
However, there he experienced astonishing training.
‘It’s not excessive stamina training? Is it okay to train like that?’
What shocked Baekho was their training routine.
Jump rope, shadowboxing, mitt work, and sparring were similar, just with different goals.
But weight training and conditioning were things Baekho had never experienced.
Unlike back home, where they ran until they dropped like some kind of ascetic training and told you not to lift weights, this was completely different.
A foreign coach trained him and led him to a whole new world.
["You don't train your muscles? How do you increase power and muscular explosiveness? You trained with outdated methods."]
That blindly increasing muscle slows you down. Under the strange beliefs of old-school coaches, few athletes focused on weights.
But overseas, they had dispelled such superstitions decades ago.
["Your biggest task is to intensively strengthen your muscles and explosiveness and solve your stamina problem. I can see you have talent!"]
Training methods shared by boxers and other coaches at foreign camps and exchanges were nothing short of a fresh shock to him.
‘Conditioning? Muscle overload and progressive overload? I was a savage.’
Having belatedly discarded outdated training and armed himself with scientific training, he caused a sensation.
‘The championship match was right before my eyes.’
But his knees and elbows, abused during his boxing days, broke down before an important match.
In the end, he retired and returned to Korea in depression.
‘That someone like me has come back as a middle schooler feels like a dream.’
Here, Baekho had a thought that would get him committed to a mental hospital if anyone heard it.
But soon, the door opened, and his mother entered. Not a single wrinkle on her face—she looked as she had in her youth.
"Baekho. Get up now, eat, and go to school."
"Yes, Mom."
A smile formed on Baekho’s face.
* * *
Starting middle school. New friends and a new environment would be exciting, but not for Baekho.
"Okay, attention! The exciting class placements and seat assignments are over. Everyone be careful going home, and I’ll see you all tomorrow!"
At their homeroom teacher’s words, all the students stood up to prepare to leave.
‘They’re the kids I saw before. The kid in the seat in front of me gets caught stealing later, and the kid next to me transfers in a year because of school violence.’
What was exciting for others was nothing more than tedious to Baekho, as he had already experienced it all.
Above all, he simply was not interested.
On the way home, Baekho saw the old zelkova tree that was the school’s pride.
Why did he smile, remembering how he had marveled at its size and height during his middle school days?
‘It’s really not a dream. It’s clear reality. I’ve returned to the past!’
Regression. It was absurd, but Baekho had regressed.
It was such a dreamlike event that the memories from that time still permeated his mind.
‘I felt like shit after retiring, so I was going to grab a drink.’
Then he saw a street food stall set up nearby.
Retired and frustrated, the smell of sweet food and the word "alcohol" fanned his desires intensely.
[If not now, when?]
Alcohol, which he had hardly touched while managing his body, was more tempting now than ever.
Lifting the orange-stained old tarp unique to street stalls, inside, a large man was skillfully cutting pork offal.
[This looks perfect with a drink.]
[Welcome!]
The owner had a rugged face, but his smile was extraordinary.
Especially since, for whatever reason, he hadn’t stopped smiling since Baekho entered.
This was where it began.
An unbelievable thing happened to Baekho.
The surrounding street stalls disappeared, and the owner before him—with eyes and mouth protruding like those of a fish—spoke to him.
This street stall owner, no, this mysterious being, whispered to Baekho like a demon.
[You regret your life? Then I’ll give you a chance. The price is your desire.]
Thanks to this man’s unknown power, Baekho was able to regress.
Now that he was a middle schooler, there was only one thing he had to do.
‘First, I need to get away from the gym and the athletic high school that abused me and ruined me.’
Like most boxers, Baekho had been learning boxing since elementary school.
However, that gym was a place that crushed other athletes through connections and factions.
‘What about the athletic high school? The juniors from that gym overtrained me there.’
In the end, it was practically affiliated with the gym, connected and exerting influence.
The first thing Baekho had to do was leave that gym.
He needed to establish his future plans properly.
Baekho took out his phone and looked up boxing news.
[Gerard Cannon Unifies Middleweight Throne!]
"To hear news about this old geezer like this. It’s a novel feeling."
Baekho smiled, looking at the veteran in his thirties whom he had met during an MMA training camp.
"If things go well, I might meet him in the ring during my active days."
What is the advantage of regression? Being able to change the future.
By preventing his injuries and overtraining, using the training methods and experience he had learned in the future.
Baekho quickly began typing out what he had to do on his phone.
[Goals]
- Olympic gold medal
- World champion after pro debut
[Current stage goals]
- Get accustomed to an MMA gym from a young age
- Find a good boxing gym and train
- Establish a weight and conditioning training schedule
His ultimate goal was basically to continue the lineage of Korean champions that had been broken after Ji Injin.
‘If you count the minor sanctioning bodies, IBO’s Kim Jihun was the last champion.’
Korean boxing was currently not just ruined and collapsed but had dug itself underground.
Professional boxers’ fight purses were said to be 100,000 won per round.
At least things would improve little by little from when Baekho was in middle school, but the situation would not get significantly better.
‘If I become active…’
In the old days, he had been called a boxing prospect but ultimately failed to achieve his dream.
But what about now?
‘If I take the experience from back then and nurture myself with proper training?’
Thinking of himself without injuries, Baekho suddenly felt elated.
‘Boxing, of course, and MMA are all possible! I’ll become a unique, one-of-a-kind fighter!’
Baekho gulped.
An opportunity to reclaim the future he had longed for.
To do that, first, he needed to find a gym that would help him.
‘Before that, I need to talk to my parents.’
Of course, such life plans meant nothing if he just thought about them by himself.
Having regressed, he was nothing more than a middle schooler who had just entered school.
Baekho went straight home.
Heading to the first floor of the old multi-family house, he opened the door energetically.
As he entered, his mother, wearing an apron, welcomed him gladly.
"Son~ welcome home! How was school!"
"Mom! I’ve decided!"
To his mother, who welcomed him happily, Baekho caught his breath.
‘Mom, you suffered for decades because of me. I’m sorry! But… I’m going to chase my dream.’
To earn a living through combat sports, an enormous amount of time had to be invested.
Before the regression, Baekho had also become a huge burden to his parents due to his failure in boxing and early retirement.
His mother looked at Baekho, who seemed firmly determined, with curiosity.
"I’ve completely decided to go into combat sports! From now on, this is important!"
"Is that so? Then do that."
"...?"
Baekho’s brain briefly froze at his mother’s nonchalant reaction.
‘What? This reaction? This is the most important decision of my child’s life? I’m grateful she gave permission, but isn’t this too easy?’
His mother handed a plate with peeled apples to Baekho, who stood there slightly bewildered.
"You have to start arts and sports young. Mom will help you. Oh, right. I should tell your father too?"
"Y-Yes…."
"What’s wrong?"
Baekho scratched his head in embarrassment.
"Well… the boxing market will be tough. B-but if I succeed… since I have the skill. But will you be okay? It might be hard."
"Baekho. Didn’t I tell you? Your father’s stock investment was a huge success this time."
"Ah…."
A forgotten memory resurfaced.
‘That’s right. Dad hit it big with stocks, and Mom made a lot of money with real estate.’
Before the regression, Baekho’s family had definitely been ordinary middle class. With the aforementioned windfall, they had transformed into a wealthy family overnight.
His mother winked with a bright smile.
"Son, Mom will support you well! Just work hard, okay?"
"Mom…!"
Baekho tried to embrace his mother with tears of emotion.
A touching mother-son hug was about to begin, but his mother immediately pushed Baekho’s face away with her palm.
"Why are you being so gross? Now, let’s talk again when Dad gets home."
"A son should be able to hug his mom!"
Baekho grumbled with a sulky face.
That evening, his father arrived and showed the exact same reaction.
"Sports are good. A boy should learn sports as a matter of course! Just trust Dad!"
An aura of approval radiated from his stern face.
"Dad! You’re the best!"
Baekho tried to hug his father but was rejected for being gross again.
"Hey! Baekho, you’re a middle schooler now. Don’t act like a child."
"You parents don’t know how cute your son is!"
Baekho grumbled but was smiling.
Now that he had permission, he had to leave his current gym and find a new one.
‘Dig up my memories. MMA training that will make me strong! And the people I need for boxing.’
As a boxer, he was confident in striking, but without MMA-style training, he would just end up rolling on the ground.
"If it's an MMA gym, Flex Gym would be perfect."
Flex Gym, where Na Jeongho, a former national team wrestler and Sambo champion, was located, was Baekho’s top choice.
‘This man was still actively fighting in the A-1 Fighting Championship at age thirty-seven and retired three years later, right?’
Na Jeongho would help with his MMA training. Since he opened a combat sports gym in Seoul, that was enough.
‘The rest is boxing, the most important and fundamental thing.’
He would not go to the athletic high school. He had memories of being overtrained there, and people from his gym were there.
‘Even in the future, boxing is in decline, with famous names being only a handful.’
Very few people were known publicly. But among them, Baekho could pick out one impressive person.
‘Son Uhyeon, the world ranker who raised An Gihwan. Where was this person during middle school?’
He was famous for teaching with a framework different from conventional boxing in terms of training methods and teaching style.
Son Uhyeon was the perfect person to help with the training Baekho wanted.
‘What was this person doing when I was in middle school? Remember.’
Baekho racked his memory as much as he could.
["I have regrets about not meeting Gihwan a little earlier." Son Uhyeon was delighted, standing beside An Gihwan ahead of the WBC Interim Championship. These two had met at the National Sports Festival. When An Gihwan was at the athletic high school, Son Uhyeon was a coach for the corporate team….]
"Ah!"
Baekho let out a short cry.
Baekho and An Gihwan were the same age. Based on three years from now, Son Uhyeon would be in a corporate team and then open a gym while raising An Gihwan.
‘How do I get into the corporate team?’
Son Uhyeon was likely in the corporate team. The problem was that it was impossible for a middle schooler to receive Son Uhyeon’s guidance.
Baekho began looking up information about corporate teams.
‘A table tennis national team player gave up entering high school in their third year of middle school to join a corporate team, but I’m in my first year. Besides, that table tennis player had won the Asian Games.’
Age was a problem, and without achievements, he could not get in.
‘Stay calm.’
Baekho tried to calm himself, catching his breath.
‘Even though I have experience and knowledge, I’m nothing right now.’
The experience and knowledge Baekho possessed could not be utilized with a middle schooler’s body.
KO punches, explosiveness, and stamina all required training.
Right now, he was just a middle schooler who was somewhat athletic.
‘Basic training is something I can do alone. Yes, these three years are nothing but basics.’
Since he could do striking training at an MMA gym, that was one less worry.
Baekho began drafting a training schedule to carry out the basics needed for boxing.