Suckerpunch: (2011) (29 page)

My breathing was all over the place. My heart rate couldn’t decide on a tempo so it cycled from jackrabbit to hummingbird.

Burbank tried to pull my legs in again, but I fought it so he settled for picking me up. The world tilted and spun, and I clamped my hands around his head to keep him from whipping me onto the canvas. I still landed on the back of my head and shoulder blades. I went loose and let the impact flow through me. My left knee made a cameo near my face and went back where it belonged.

Burbank knelt in my open guard and tried to smash my face with a hammerfist. I got my hips up and extended away so his hand only caved my chest in. I put my right foot on his shoulder but couldn’t move him. He was bolted to the floor. He brushed my foot to his right and scrambled into side mount, but I rolled to my left away from him and squirted out of his paws and got back to my feet. He stayed on one knee for a moment and smiled, showing a glimpse of her name, before he rushed me again.

The crowd sounded like it was pressed against the cage. I could feel its breath on my back. I moved to my right and sent a jab out that hit nothing.

Burbank squared up with me and stalked forward, following me around the perimeter of the cage. He planted his left foot, and I flashed a low kick into the inside of his knee. It cracked home and felt good, but he didn’t seem to notice.

I moved back, and he faked another overhand right and darted in with a takedown attempt. I jumped away and stiff-armed his head and hit him in the ear with a glancing shot. He got up and plowed forward again.

I retreated.

I was thinking way too much. About Kendall, Big Jake, Tezo, and how they were connected to Burbank—the monster I was locked in a cage with and the only person I should have been thinking about.

No, fuck that. I shouldn’t have been thinking at all.

Acting and reacting.

Fighting.

Despite Gil’s best efforts, my main strategy is I can take more punishment than the other guy. I’ll stand in the pocket and throw punches and knees and elbows and come out on top because I hit harder and can take a harder punch.

Burbank was different. I couldn’t plant my feet to throw any power punches, or he’d take me down. I couldn’t kick above the legs, or he’d take me down. I had the powerbomb bait if it did go to the ground, but our brief meeting down there had me concerned. Burbank was immovable, and the one punch he’d hit me with so far felt like a traffic accident. If he got me down and kept me there, I was done.

He tried a left-right combo and shot for the double. I slipped the left, blocked the right and got knocked sideways, and danced away from the takedown.

The crowd despised me. I was denying their gladiator his right to competition. They wanted us to stand and bang until he caught me and I went down so he could pounce and tenderize my head until the ref jumped in.

I didn’t like it, either. I wasn’t used to moving backward. But standing in the pocket with his power was too risky, too easy for a flash knockout from something I didn’t see coming. He followed me and tried the one-two combo again. He grimaced, and I saw Marcela’s name. He drove forward after the combo, and I sprawled for the ensuing takedown, but it didn’t come.

A left hook came instead.

A fist big enough to plug a pool drain caught me on the side of the head, and everything went black.

The sounds returned first.

A fuzzy roar that started to pull apart into distinct voices and impacts. I heard Gil screaming and Wilkins, the ref, telling someone he should defend himself. I tried to find who he was talking to, but my head wouldn’t stay where I wanted it to; it kept bouncing up and down and side to side.

I looked straight up and saw Burbank above me, smashing his fists into my face. I had my hands behind his head and was trying to bring him closer to keep him from getting full power behind the punches. He was in my closed guard, between my legs with my ankles crossed behind his back.

I had no idea how long this had been going on or how we’d arrived here.

Burbank hit me again, and Wilkins said, “Cover up, fighter. Do something or it’s over.”

I couldn’t see out of my right eye. I tried to open it and everything was red and it wouldn’t stay open. I was cut. Burbank hammered at that eye and pushed my head to the left to get the blood to flow into it. I patted him on the head and face with my fist to show Wilkins I was still in it.

I had to get on my feet. I pulled my legs up into a high guard to coax Burbank into the powerbomb. He pushed them back down and dropped an anvil onto my stomach and smacked me in the face with a house.

Wilkins leaned over me and asked, “Can you see?”

I didn’t answer him. I was busy.

“Can you see? I’ll stop the fight if you can’t see.”

“I can see. I’m fine,” I said.

Burbank laughed and punched my rib cage sideways. I pulled high guard again, and Burbank leaned back and got one foot underneath him. He was going to try to pick me up and drop me on my head, and I’d let my legs fall and be on my feet.

No.

He scooped his left arm under my right leg and pried it off and spun me on my back and dived into side mount. Where he could do some real damage. He put his left elbow over my eye and ground it in to make sure the gash didn’t close. He kneed me in the ribs and punched me in the guts. I laid there and listened to the crowd howl and the sound of my body getting beaten and took it.

I was still waiting for everything to slow down like it always did when I fought. When I could see things coming and predict and react and counter without thinking. I was still waiting when the bell rang to end the first round and Burbank pushed off my face to get up and left me in a spreading pool of blood.

The crowd chanted Burbank’s name.

Hollywood went to work on the cut over my eye with Vaseline and diluted adrenaline to close the cap illaries. Jairo rubbed my shoulders and put an ice pack on the back of my neck to shrink the blood vessels that led to my face.

Gil squatted between my feet and poured water into me and offered encouragement: “That was fucking disgusting. Where did you learn any of that? I’ve never seen it before, and I sure as hell didn’t teach it.”

I worked on breathing. “He’s got her name on his mouthpiece.”

He either didn’t hear me or didn’t care. “What the hell were you doing flopping around on your back like that?”

“I went for the powerbomb. He didn’t bite.”

“Well, then you were right to lie there and get the shit kicked out of you. Jesus, find another way to get up. Better yet, don’t get taken down in the first place.”

“How’d he get me down?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“What did he do?”

Gil took a closer look at me. “Shit, were you out?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“If you don’t know, that’s a yes. Forget it. Lateral movement. The first chance you get to throw power, do it. He hasn’t tasted any yet, and he won’t like it. And he’s going to try to take you down right away and get more blood in your eye, so don’t let that happen.”

“Okay,” I said. “Am I still bleeding?”

Hollywood looked hurt. “Come on. You’re good for now, but it ain’t built to last.”

Wilkins told everyone to clear the cage. Hollywood gathered his things and patted my knee and hustled out the door.

Jairo leaned in. “She’s watching. You’re a fighter. Don’t try to win for her; just fight for her.” He checked my eyes and nodded, took the stool out of the cage.

Wilkins walked to the center and the bell rang.

Forget Kendall. Eddie. Tezo.

Marcela was watching.

Everything slowed down.

Burbank did his starting block sprint again and shot toward me. I could see his calves stretch and bunch up to push him forward. He leaned over his toes and put his center of gravity too far ahead. He crossed the midpoint of the cage and pawed a jab out and judged me to be at the right distance and shot in for the takedown.

I launched into a flying knee that crunched into his neck and jaw with his full weight behind them. He went limp. I toppled over his back and landed on his legs. I spun around and took his back with my knees at his sides and pounded my fists into the sides of his head. He was rocked but had the presence to cover his head with his forearms. I battered them and tried to sneak into gaps and switched up with some punches to the ribs to bring his hands down.

The crowd may have gone quiet or kept hollering; I don’t remember hearing them after that point. I listened to Burbank grunting and breathing and punched him again and again. I must have hit my forehead on him or the canvas during the tumble because my blood was raining onto his back. A few drips at first, then a steady stream as I shook the cut open with my efforts.

Wilkins stepped toward Burbank’s head and said, “Do something, Junior. Do something.”

Burbank snugged his arms tighter and covered his head so all I could see was the back of his skull and his spine, both illegal targets. A rear naked choke was out of the question; his arms and shoulders and neck were too massive to snake anything through.

I did the only thing I could do. I stood and backed away and waved him to his feet.

Wilkins said, “Up, Junior, up.”

Burbank peeked out from his arms and saw me standing. He pulled his knees in and tried his feet. He was still wobbly from the flying knee.

“Turn around. Face each other,” Wilkins said. When Burbank finally got around, Wilkins said, “Fight!”

I moved forward. I wanted to be in the pocket, trading blows. I just had to hit harder.

Burbank retreated. His legs were unsteady and his eyes were glassy. I followed and tried to tag him, but he kept his head moving and his hands up. The punches that did land couldn’t get through to anything important. I cut him off with an angle, and he shot in for a takedown so I had to sprawl and give him room again. He backed up and I followed.

We did that three times, and I was ready to fire another flying knee when Burbank shook his head, stood his ground, and threw a slow right jab. I stepped in and hit him with a straight right and a left hook to the liver that felt like it touched his spine. He bent around the punch and heaved a left hook at me that I stepped inside of and snuck a right uppercut that grazed his chin but didn’t do any damage.

Burbank wrapped his arms around the small of my back and pulled me into a Greco-Roman clinch and spun to walk me over and crush me against the cage near his corner. He drove the top of his head into the cut over my eye and pushed, not technically an illegal head butt but not very classy, either. He dropped down and tried to secure a double-leg, but I had my hips against his shoulder and my legs spread. Blood poured down my face and into my eye.

Burbank’s cornermen yelled at the ref to check my eye and stop the fight.

Wilkins watched me closely. I blinked the blood out and made sure he could see my open eye. Then Burbank drove into me, and a fresh flow welled out and filled my eye socket. I shook my head but couldn’t get the eye back open.

“Stop! Stop!” Wilkins said.

Burbank let go and stepped back, and I got ready to die.

“Doctor time-out. We gotta look at that cut. Go to neutral corners. No, that one, Junior, over there. Woody, come with me.” Wilkins guided me over to a neutral corner.

The physician, a blonde woman about forty years old, came in the cage with a commission representative and looked at my cut. Towels came over the cage, and I used them to soak up as much blood as possible. “Can you see okay?” she asked me.

“Yes, fine. Please don’t stop the fight. Please.”

“I know. I know.” She examined the cut again and looked into my eye. She seemed concerned.

It couldn’t end like this. I’d fight until my blood ran out if they let me.

But they wouldn’t.

The doctor shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“I can see fine. Hold up some fingers.”