A Long Night at the Fights From: Prologue Tonight's main event had a few twists. As always, these were essentially strength wrestling matches; body punching was ok, but no blows to the head and only submissions counted. Unlike our usual matches, this would not be a best of five. It would be two hours plus a fall, and it could be a big payday for us, the fighters. We were getting our usual $1,000 appearance fee and $500 per fall. But tonight, there was no limit on the number of falls: we'd fight for two hours with a two-minute rest between falls. You couldn't use the same submission hold for two falls after winning with it. At the end of two hours, they'd ring the bell for the final fall, which was worth $1,000 to the winner. To prevent one fighter from dominating, if one fighter was ahead by two falls, a third fighter stepped in for a strength contest to give the leading fighter a match while the trailing fighter rested. In order to make sure the fighter really put out in this match, the loser would get 4 blasts from a stun gun, 2 in the abs, and one in each pec. If a fighter went up by three or more falls, he would fight the third man in a 15-minute match with the third man starting on top. For the fighters, it could mean a very good payday, and the promoter was getting a lot more betting action without hiring a lot more fighters. Since endurance was one of my strong points, I was pretty confident about this format; I just had to make sure I didn't get hurt very bad in the early falls. That wouldn't normally be a concern, but tonight's opponent was an unknown quantity, El Diablo, from the South American syndicate. The Warm-Up A little more than an hour before the main event was scheduled to start, one of the promoter's body guards came looking for me in the locker room. He said my warm-up was ready. I told him I didn't need a warm-up tonight because of the format for the main event. He said again my warm-up was ready, and it wasn't optional. Marv, the promoter was going to pay me $1,000 for a private, two-fall warm-up. An extra $1,000 for a warm-up sounded like easy money, so I went with the goon down a long corridor, around the corner and through two doors to a 12- by-12 sweat box. As soon as I walked in, every sweat gland in my body went into overdrive. There were three other people there; two looked like muay thai fighters, and the other one looked like one of Marv's stooges. Since I was about 30 pounds heavier than either of these two fighters, I would have a thirty- minute warm-up match against them, a five-minute rest, and the second fall; they would alternate every three minutes, but they didn't have to tag the other.. We would wear headgear just in case, but there were to be no blows to the head. The two kickboxers looked like they had been carved from blocks of granite. They were each about 5'6'', slender but heavily muscled, probably 170 pounds. Their abs were nearly as cut as mine, and there was no sign of fat anywhere on either body. Their pecs were moderately thick, and they were so cut it looked like they could hold a piece of paper in the crease between pecs and ribs. The taper from their wide shoulders to what looked like 26 or 27-inch waists was awesome. As impressive as their torsos were, they paled in comparison to their incredible legs. Most professional bodybuilders would kill for legs that these. I had seen some muay thai in Bangkok a few years back, and I marveled at the powerful leg action in those fights. These fighters looked like they could be champions from Lumpini. Each of them wore traditional muay thai shorts but no gloves. The first kickboxer came straight at me and started with a front kick to my stomach, followed with a knee to my right side. Thai kickboxers are renowned for their devastating kicks, and I now knew why firsthand. The front kick did no damage, but the knee caused my right lat to spasm. I returned the first salvo with a punch to his upper abdomen, just below the heart, but it just bounced off his granite hard body. He followed with two short, sharp punches to my abs that bounced off harmlessly, and a roundhouse kick to my right side that landed just below my ribs and took my breath away. I lunged at him to get him off his feet, but he sidestepped me and my fully exposed gut took the full force of his left knee strike. I went down hard on my face, and he followed with a falling elbow between my shoulder blades. As I started to get up, he slid over my back and quickly closed a leg scissor around my waist. I straightened up on my knees and tried to pry his legs apart. He reached up and around my throat with his left arm to pull me down, but he didn't have enough weight or leverage to get me down. He started pounding my right lat and ribs with his right fist, as I tried to pry his legs apart. I had to hurry, because his incredible legs were squeezing out what was left of my breath. I decided to take advantage of our sweat-lubricated skin and rotate in his scissor hold. Bad mistake. After rotating 1/4 turn, he clamped down even harder with his tree-like thighs driving his left knee deep into my belly. Using all of his body weight, he could now roll me over on my back, pinning my lower legs beneath me. Without any leverage, I could only drop my elbow on his left side or pound on his rock-hard thigh. In response, he began to relax slightly and flex again every second or so, pounding my stomach with his left knee in the process. In order to keep me down like this, he was rotated so far he couldn't use his hands. When the 3-minute whistle sounded, the second kickboxer sat down with my head in his crotch and laid his thighs over my upper arms and joined his ankles behind my back like a full nelson. The first kickboxer released his leg scissor and stood up. The new fighter leaned forward and started punching my pecs from the sides. I brought my legs up quickly and kicked him in the chest knocking him to his back. I wriggled my arms partially free and repeated the roll-up kick when he tried to straighten up. While he was on his back the second time, I managed to free my arms and roll away. He delivered a solid kick to my right side as I got to all fours, but I wrapped my arm around his leg when he tried to repeat the blow to my right lat. I dropped all my weight and rolled into him taking him down. I continued to roll up on him and planted a heavy elbow in his gut; it felt like I had hit a wall. He smiled at me! I dropped my elbow into his belly twice more with the same results. I slid around on top of him and pinned his shoulders with my lower legs; I was sitting on his face guard and getting ready to pound his gut. He raised his right knee to try a shot at my head. I grabbed his ankle and pulled it to my shoulder, stretching his hamstring. I pounded his fully stretched hamstring, and he began writhing in pain and trying to buck me off. I hooked his right leg under my arm and reached down to grab his left leg. I repeated the attack on his left hamstring while he screamed and bucked. I had both ankles hooked under my arms, and decided to slam him face down. I stood quickly, pulled him through my legs and flipped him out in front of me and up to waist level, face down; I shifted my left hand to the small of his back and pressed down to slam him face down to the mat. That slam took a lot of the wind out of him, and I landed with both knees on his shoulder blades. I still wanted to pound his belly, but I knew I had to keep working on his powerful legs. I rolled him over and put my right knee in his gut; it was still hard as a rock. I used my left forearm across his knees to hold him down, and started to pound his rock-hard thighs. He tried to sit up to punch at my right side, but a hard shot to his chest put him back down. I kept working on his thighs, and he started to moan and twist with every punch. After a minute or so of this, I started pounding his belly. My first twenty punches had no effect, but slowly I could see the cumulative effect of my weight and heavy punches. He was having trouble getting his breath and... Tweeeet! The whistle seemed early to me, but ... I looked up when I heard the whistle and took the first kickboxer's flying kick square in my gut. Dazed, I fell back against the wall, and the kickboxer went to work on my abs and pecs with his feet. I finally managed to catch his right foot after absorbing at least a dozen bruising kicks. I twisted his ankle and rolled him down. He tried to donkey kick me with his left foot, but I pushed it aside and delivered my own kicks to his side. Remembering how strong his legs were, I went after them first. Still holding his ankle, I rolled him over on his back and folded him over on himself so his hamstrings were accessible to me. I pummeled his hamstrings for at least a minute, and he was screaming for most of that time. I then pulled him completely over onto his stomach and dropped both knees on his shoulder blades. I needed to slow the pace a little, so I straddled him, pulled him partway up, and circled his waist with my legs. After I sat down on his legs, I clamped a full nelson on him and started grinding with my legs as I rocked forward and back putting as much pressure as I could on his lower back. His partner came over and knelt down in front of him and said something to him. As soon as he stood up, the whistle sounded. Immediately the first fighter clamped his arms down on mine preventing me from releasing the full nelson; at the same time, he put all of his effort into his abs to draw me forward over his back. His partner was on me like stink on shit with fierce toe kicks to my right lat and my right obliques. After 20 kicks, he jumped around and did the same to my left side; then he shouted, and the first fighter released my arms. The second fighter grabbed my wrists and pulled me down on my back so his partner could free himself. Before I could move, he jumped with both feet in my midsection forcing the air out of my lungs. He rolled me over and pulled both arms into hammerlocks. He then rolled me over onto my back and jumped up, landing on his butt in my stomach. He liked the effect so much, he did it three more times. Then he stood and began kicking the crease between my ribs and my pecs. After about a minute of this, he stood on my stomach and started jumping up and down. He kept this up for what seemed like several minutes until my abs could no longer flex. When would the whistle blow again? Just then, tweeet! The first fighter walked over while the second stayed standing on my stomach. With his weight on me, I couldn't free my arms. After a couple words between them, they each grabbed one of my pecs and pulled me to my knees. Each fighter grabbed an arm, held it out horizontal and delivered a devastating kick to each armpit. Both my arms went numb; they had targeted their kicks at the nerve bundle in the armpit. Two more kicks from each of them, and my arms were useless. The second fighter went to get some water, while the first fighter attacked my sides with his shins. He then stood behind me and dropped his elbows into my traps. After the first dozen, he started jumping to get more force into the blows. When he decided to quit, he pushed me down face first into the mat and rolled me over onto my back. He was going to pay me back for attacking his legs, and he grabbed my left ankle and raised my leg straight up. The he delivered a dozen toe kicks to the inside of my left thigh and a dozen shin blows to my hamstring. He repeated the process on my other leg. When the second fighter walked over to join in, there was no longer any pretense about switching off. This wasn't a warm-up submission match; it was a softening of Razor before the main event. Marv's smiling presence in the doorway confirmed that. The two fighters got me back up on my knees, and one of them sat in front of me in order to put on his leg scissor around my waist. The second sat down behind me, raised my tingling arms over my head, and slapped a leg scissor around my chest. Within a couple minutes, I passed out from the heat and the beating. The Recovery The smelling salts brought me around quickly. I was on my back in the sweat box with the two kickboxers, two of Marv's goons, and Jimmy, Marv's trainer, standing over me. They helped me to my feet, and we all walked back to the locker room. After a short, cold shower cooled me off, Jimmy started massaging my upper arms. He knew what the kicks to my pits had done and had orders to get me ready for the main event. Slowly, the feeling returned to my arms, but I still had little strength. When Marv came in, he told Jimmy to keep working on me. "Sorry for the surprise, kid, but there's too much money on El Diablo. I couldn't take the chance of you upsetting him. I'll throw an extra G in your envelope. This is my first show with the South American syndicate, and if it goes ok, we'll all be seeing some big paydays, both here and down there. Just give us a good show." Marv left and Jimmy began working on my legs. When Marv came back, it was time for the main event. I pulled on my shorts and put my cup in my jock. I felt like hell, maybe 60% of what I had been an hour earlier. On the way to the cage, Marv whispered that El Diablo knew what had happened and would take it easy on me; he would let me win a few falls. The main event would be in a glass cage so all the betters could be close and see all the action. I was the last to enter the cage. Marv had already introduced El Diablo and the third man, Dread, the guy I had beaten in this cage two weeks ago. He looked at me with a knowing smile. El Diablo was a little bigger than I, about 6'3" and 220 pounds; I'm 6'1" and 210. He didn't look as sharp as I am; more of his weight was in his upper body, and his gut looked a little smooth. He had a menacing look on his face and enjoyed flexing his arms and chest for the crowd. Dread was almost exactly the same size as I and built very similarly. He's not quite as hard in the gut and doesn't have my endurance, but he can be dangerous. He had taken the first fall from me two weeks ago, a very long and punishing fight. It took more out of him than out of me, so my endurance came into play in the remaining falls. He knew he could beat me in a short match, but he probably couldn't outlast me if I was at full strength. Tonight would be different. Marv introduced me, and I walked around for all the betters to get a good look at me. I could see the betting action was hot, but most of the spectators were strangers; this wasn't our usual crowd. I could see a couple of betting sheets through the glass and noticed the bets were larger than usual. The average bet was usually a hundred or two; tonight's bets were in the $500 to $2500 range; I could understand Marv's concern. Dread stepped out of the cage, and Jimmy closed it up. Dread stayed by the glass and made sure I could see his verbal message, "Tonight, you're mine." The Main Event When the bell rang, El Diablo and I circled each other a couple of times. He feigned a punch and shot for my legs. I was down in an instant, and he was on my chest. He slapped me in the face a couple of times, before starting to hammer my pecs. I managed to buck him off and start to roll away. He caught me as I started to stand and clamped on a standing full nelson; he drove me face first into the glass wall, and began lifting a knee into my ass. After a couple minutes of this, he pulled me away from the glass and using the full nelson, threw me across the cage. I landed hard at the base of the far wall. As I stood, he charged into me like a football tackle and pinned my upper body against the wall. He raised his shoulders and began hammering my gut just below the heart. When he stood back, I went down on my knees. He stepped to the side and sat down to clamp a figure-4 on my left arm. I tapped out less than a minute later. I stayed on the mat for the whole 2-minute rest period. When the bell rang for the second fall, I got to all fours, and shot into El Diablo's legs, taking him down. He rotated on the way down, and I slid up on his back. He whispered that he'd let me win this fall. We wrestled hard for several punishing minutes. He had me in position to finish the fall several times, but didn't clamp down hard. Finally, he seemed to fall into whatever I was trying to do and tapped out after being in a chicken wing for only a couple seconds. The crowd was excited and the betting was going hot and heavy. I was surprised nobody noticed El Diablo had thrown that fall. I got some water between falls, and we both started on our feet when the bell rang again. The third fall was almost a repeat of the second. I took most of the punishment, but he tapped out after about 10 minutes. I was up 2 to 1. H e started the next fall by dropping to his butt and trying to trip me. I avoided the trip and came down on his chest. Once again, he dished out most of the punishment for 10 minutes or so, before opening himself up for a leg scissor. I knew my weakened legs couldn't force him to submit, but he tapped out after 30 seconds in the hold. I now had a two-fall advantage and would face Dread in a strength contest. El Diablo and Dread exchanged grins, as Dread and Jimmy entered the glass cage. The strength contest would be a 2-part test: We would stand face-to-face with a one-foot rod pressed into our guts. We had to keep the rod from dropping by pressing forward against the other guy; our chests were almost touching. Dread would try to keep me from raising my hands to shoulder level. We would start with his hands atop mine, our arms out a 45-degree angle. If I got my hands up to shoulder level, I won and Dread got the stun gun in the abs twice. If Dread pushed my hands down to my sides, I got the stun gun. There was a 3-minute time limit. I raised my arms slightly, but Dread smiled as he kept me from getting all the way up. He held my hands there until the 15-second warning, then pressed my hands down to my sides. We went ahead with the second part before the stun gun; we would reverse positions, and the loser got his pecs stunned. I had to keep Dread from raising his hands to shoulder level. The second test went like the first, with Dread pressing up in the last few seconds. Both my shoulders and pecs were wasted. Dread laughed as he left the cage, and Jimmy pressed the stun gun into my abs just above and to the right of my navel for the first shot. Each of the four stuns knocked me down, and I couldn't get back up for almost two minutes. El Diablo got an extra 10-minute rest. El Diablo worked me over for almost 20 minutes before finally closing out the next fall with a crab that he held for several minutes before rocking back enough to force my submission. He then gave away the next two falls as he had earlier. I took the punishment, but he tapped out. Now I had a 5-2 lead and had to face Dread in a 15-minute match while El Diablo rested. Obviously Dread and El Diablo had worked this out in advance. Dread worked me over like El Diablo had, but he wasn't going to let me win. At about the 12-minute mark, Dread slapped a front leg-scissor around my midsection and clamped devastating claws on both pecs. My punches to his chest and stomach were ineffective. He kept squeezing and releasing my pecs for a minute or two before maximizing the pressure with his legs and hands at the same time. I could barely find the breath to say, "I quit!" As El Diablo and I started the next fall, there was only 8 minutes left of the two hours. He quickly outmuscled me and got me in the same position Dread had a few minutes earlier. He waited until there were 3 minutes left before tightening the holds to force my submission. We would have another fall before the final match. We were about a minute into the fall when the bell sounded, and El Diablo whispered that we had to make this look good. He beat my gut hard for several minutes, before letting me muscle him around on the mat for a few minutes. At one point, I had a leg scissor on him, but I didn't have enough strength to force his submission. After a few more minutes, he rolled me over on my back and crunched my abs with a double claw. After a minute of this, he rolled all of his weight onto his shoulders, and I quickly tapped out. The crowd was going wild with excitement, not realizing they'd been had. The final, big money fall went like the previous one. El Diablo was in complete control and dragged out the match for at least 15 minutes. The final submission was a crippling chicken wing on my left arm; he held it for two or three minutes, and my arm was numb, before he cranked up the pressure. As we left the cage, El Diablo said he wanted to fight me again, a fair fight. Dread couldn't contain his laughter, and I was more beat up than I could ever remember. Epilogue Marv showed up in the locker room about 30 minutes later. He was ecstatic and said he was already working on a rematch for Rio in a few weeks. He asked if I had a passport. I grabbed his coat lapel and pulled him down and whispered that he needed to put a couple thousand in the envelope. I'd need a couple of weeks to recover, not my usual 3 or 4 days, and I wasn't going that long without a payday. It was an idle threat, and Marv knew it; but he also knew that he'd have to do it if he wanted me to fight El Diablo again. Now Dread was another matter altogether. **************An early effort. Feedback appreciated. Free web-based email, Forever, From anywhere!http: www.mailexcite.com