Feeling down,
with losses three,
the closest tourney,
you ever will see.

Monster fights on,
stakes raised high,
and still no one knows,
who's victor tonight.

Holding your breath,
then another K.O.,
all these matches,
are brutal and slow.

Close to the end,
score card in hand,
last opponent to fight,
is best in the land.

Fist clinches tightly,
the tourney bell rings,
with nothing but fear,
as the battle sounds sing.

The match is long,
your monster lands hard,
seems another death,
has been claimed in this yard.

Then it rises,
resuming the fight,
everything it has,
is out there tonight.

End of the event,
and I walk home,
so proud of the zeal,
my monster has shown.

I pat its head gently,
and it passes to sleep,
deserving it all,
it has to be beat.

I glance at my trophy,
proud I would reckon,
slowly pressing my thumb,
against the word called "Second".

I glance to the barn,
he's sore for this cost,
nothing builds success quite,
as such an extravagant loss.

Very nice, but I find trouble with the syllable count in the last line.

Oooooh! Vundebar! I love the meaning of the poem.

Good meaning, good flow, good poem...(list goes on forever), and just very, very good

Yeah, the count threw me off at the end, too, but I originally wrote a poem about boxing along these lines, based on a fight I had (that I lost).

Either way, just says that losing is only part of rising.