I stood in the center of the blue-and-red mat wearing only my cotton socks and gray undershirt, my arms hanging loose at my sides, my pulse remaining locked at fifty-two beats per minute.
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In the bleachers, eighty-two-year-old Harold Vance scrambled down the wooden tiers, his aluminum cane clicking erratically against the bleachers as he shoved his way past two stunned mothers:
“Blake, you idiot! Shut your mouth!” Harold yelled, his voice cracking with genuine, desperate terror:
“Drop your gloves! Step off the mat right now! You don't know who you're standing in front of!”
Blake didn't listen.
An arrogant champion who has spent five years being applauded by regional promoters cannot comprehend that there are men in this world who do not fight for trophies—men who are trained simply to dismantle living human anatomy with the cold, mathematical finality of an industrial guillotine.
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“I don't care who he is!” Blake roared, his face contorting into pure, homicidal rage as he lunged forward, launching a brutal left hook designed to shatter my cheekbone!
