Now we wait.
The judges tally the points while members of the audience choose their own winner.
Can you bear the tension?
The undercard wasn’t too entertaining. Most people would have given it a miss, preferring instead to turn up just for the main event – the championship of Scotland between challenger Alex Salmond and reigning champion Nicola Sturgeon.
It’s difficult to dislodge a champ.
They’re current and carry huge support, but the experience and greater skills of a former kingpin are, certainly for the enthusiasts and the knowledgeable, always attractive.
Has he still got it? They ask. Is he fit for such a big contest?
Experienced ex-champions know how to pace themselves and pick their punches at crucial points of a fight.
Such a strategy can frequently succeed in angering opponents into making errors. Good tactics.
There’s nothing better than an irate fighter you can pick off early on, before you need to step up a gear.
It’s intriguing when the younger competitor slips up and you realise that while the ex-champ might have taught his rival everything she knows, it is not everything HE knows.
He understands how to pace a fight and refuses to become flustered when attacked, releasing counter-punches when he wants.
He waits for his opponent to expend energy on pre-fight claims, counter-claims and denials as well as boasts of: “I can’t wait to show you what’s in my armoury.”
Before the clash, the champ landed several dodgy verbal blows, but her supporters chose to ignore allegations that they were low.
They did not break the rules, they shouted. Salmond didn’t buckle. He held his nerve, refusing to panic.
He bobbed and weaved and slipped her punches.
Sturgeon became less nimble and irked the longer the encounter progressed. Her normal fluency had abandoned her.
The former titleholder rolled with the punches and made the woman in the Saltire vest miss many times.
But the challenger’s time would come. Would he have all he needed for the later stages of the contest?
Would his big body punches wind his opponent?
This was a long, tough, uncompromising and sometimes dirty coming together of two titans of the SNP. When the final bell rang and they slumped on to their stools, the pundits billed it the Scottish political fight of the decade.
The contestants each suffered cuts and bruises.
They knew they’d been in a brutal battle.
Now, they towel off the sweat of a gruelling 12-rounder as the ring announcer picks up the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, after 12 gruelling rounds the winner is …”
Legend Ian showed he was man of the people
Ian St John’s smile and his throaty laugh underlined his personality.
He didn’t take life nor himself seriously.
The former Liverpool and Scotland football star, who became a top TV pundit, lit up a room with stories of a stellar career and his hilarious impersonation of his former manager, Bill Shankly.
But Ian, who died this week aged 82, was a man of the people. Once, as we drove to a European tie featuring the Dons, he spotted two Pittodrie-bound red and white-clad supporters and asked me to stop the car.
He lowered the passenger window and shouted: “Would you like a lift?”
By this time, Ian had been one half of the famous Saint and Greavsie pairing as he and Jimmy Greaves, the ex-Tottenham Hotspur and England goalscorer, helped ITV’s Saturday lunchtime ratings soar. The fans’ reaction was one of slack-jawed disbelief, but they jumped in and Ian chatted to them about the possible outcome of that night’s game.
“You made them very happy,” I said after they’d left the car.
“I try to offer a couple of fans a lift when I go to a game,” he replied.
We covered many European games, including Aberdeen’s European Cup-Winners’ Cup triumph in Gothenburg in 1983.
The Dons’ victory made him genuinely pleased, as our post-match celebrations reflected.
Pontins shamed by anti-irish prejudice
HI-DE-HI!
Pontins once had showbizzers like Shane Richie, Lee Mack and Bradley Walsh on their payroll.
But would the latter, who’s gone from Bluecoat to TV stardom, be hired today? The reports of bias by Pontins’ holiday parks against “undesirable guests” with Irish surnames has landed the company in hot water with the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
So, if you were a Boyle, Delaney, Gallagher or even a Walch – one letter too close for Bradley’s comfort – you wouldn’t have been able to book your chalet.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Express website. For more information, read about our new combined website.