He looked more pissed off than I’d seen him in a long time. “I’m your coach, and Kieran’s your corner man. That means you listen to what we have to say. If you don’t fight smart like Kieran said, this guy’s gonna walk all over you. Now I want you to fight the first three rounds defensively. Keep your guard up and wear him down. Round four or five, when he’s up on points, you let him have it. Then take him by surprise when he thinks you’re done.” I nodded my head as I bounced. I knew he was right but I struggled with the craving to hurt someone. “And for fuck’s sake, don’t knock him out. This is an exhibition match. Anything more than heavy sparring and you’ll be disqualified.”
“Sure thing,” I answered as I shifted my weight from foot to foot. Then it was time. At the sign from the management guy, I jogged slowly toward the spotlight.
As I reached the ring, I climbed in through the ropes, with Kieran and Danny right behind me. Kieran helped me off with my robe, and I looked past him, anxious for Temple to join me.
Even standing in this ring was cathartic. In a few minutes, I’d be able to unleash all my hatred in the name of sportsmanship, and what’s left of me after belonged to my girl. My music ended as his began, and I snorted. He’d chosen some stupid rap shit and was strutting toward me like he had the fight sewn up. He hadn’t fought with me yet. I was gonna knock the cocky right out of him, and he’d kiss the canvas in gratitude for the lesson. I bounced around shaking out my arms and looking like I hadn’t got a care in the world. Rico Temple was nothing to me. I had enough inside to take down ten of him with how I was feeling. Danny smacked my abs to draw my attention and shoved my gum shield into my mouth.
“Stick to the plan, keep your guard up and pick your punches. You ready?” he asked. I nodded at him but my mind was already on Temple. Squeezing my shoulder reassuringly, he climbed out of the ring. The referee called us to the center, and the self-assured smirk on Rico’s face was already pissing me off.
“Gentleman, when I say ‘break’ I want a clean break. In the event of a knockdown, you will be directed to go to a neutral corner. You’re both professionals so I expect a good, clean fight. No hitting below the belt, and protect yourself at all times. Okay, touch gloves and come out at the bell.”
I held my gloves out, staring Temple in the eye as I willed him to know that I was gonna end him. He ignored the gesture and saluted me mockingly. The crowd was already booing at the bad sportsmanship. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t feeling very fucking sporting anyway. I tried to keep my expression neutral and remember what Danny told me about the game plan. Then the bell rang out, and it all went out of the window. Every bit of training I’d ever had, all the advice I’d ever been given, every ounce of common sense I’d been born with and it was all gone at the bell. With the sound ringing in my ears, Temple became Frank, and I threw myself at him. He didn’t expect me to come out so aggressively, and I landed two crippling body shots and a right hook to the head before he got his guard up. I wasn’t pacing myself or holding anything back for the rest of the fight. All the power I had went into every punch as my stress melted away. I managed to herd him into a corner and was going at his ribs as hard as I did the bags at the gym. Em was the most fucking precious thing in the world to me, and I imagined this was the fucker who nearly broke her. He spent most of his life tearing her down and beating her, and when I swore she’d never feel that way again, he took her from under my nose. Not this time. This time I was gonna end him in the ring and he’d never get to her again.
The referee pulled me back, and Temple shook it off. A few minutes ago, he looked cocky. Now he looked mad. “Tone it down. This is supposed to be an exhibition match,” the referee warned me.
It was all the time Temple needed to recover. As soon as the referee moved away, he smacked me in the cheek with a killer left jab, throwing my head back and nearly dislodging my gum shield. Without pause, he served back to me exactly what I’d just delivered. I couldn’t stop him, but I didn’t really feel much pain either.
Pushing him back in the corner, I started going at him again until I was almost windmilling. My adrenaline level must have been through the roof because I felt like I could pound on him all night. In my peripheral vision, I saw the referee moving toward me on my right, and I knew he was going to warn me again when a left uppercut came out of nowhere and had me seeing stars. The referee stood between us giving me a moment to recover, and any warning died on his lips. We were both breaking the rules and spirit of an exhibition bout, but the referee had no fucking clue what to do. He couldn’t disqualify us both, and the crowd was fucking loving it. He threw his arms down to signal that we could fight but both of us were a little bit wary this time. In that moment, I literally wanted to end the arsehole. As we squared off against each other, I dived at him again, no longer caring that I didn’t have an opening. He fended off all my body shots, and I wasn’t holding back. The more he held his guard, the angrier I became. When the bell sounded to signal the end of the round, I could have roared in frustration. Kieran put my stool down in the corner, and I sat down. Hard. Leaning forward, I was dying to get back out there, and I willed the sixty seconds to go by quickly. Kieran shot water into my mouth, while Danny laid into me.
“Are you deaf or feckin’ stupid, Cormac O’Connell?” he asked. “’Cause I distinctively remember telling you how to fight this match. You don’t look like a professional boxer out there. You look like an arrogant kid who’s about to have his arse handed to him.” I didn’t answer back but it’s not like Danny would’ve given me a chance anyway. He was on a roll. “You listen to me if you want to save this fight. Now he knows what you’re made of but he has to be betting that you’ve worn yourself out. So you go back to the original game plan. Protect yourself and let him think you’re spent, then let him have it.” I nodded at him but I couldn’t concentrate, and I was already looking for Temple behind him. Danny looked at Kieran and shook his head, like they were having some kind of silent conversation. I didn’t give a fuck what they were both bitching about. Whether I did it Danny’s way or my way, I had this in the bag.
The bell rang, and I stood up to fight. I was watching Temple’s shoulders, trying to read his next move when he came at me. His hook-hook-jab combination was predictable. The left hook that caught me square in the eye wasn’t. I stumbled about a bit on my feet, dazed but not knocked out, but it was enough for the referee to give me a standing count. As I waited impatiently for the count to be over, I could see the judges scribbling furiously. That hook had cost me, but Temple was going to pay for it. Charging at him the minute I had the go-ahead, I unleashed a volley of body shots. Most of them were blocked, but the ones that did get through must have been rib bruisers. Thinking that I had him trapped on the ropes, I was stunned when he jerked up and reversed our position. Every single one of his hits, even the ones I blocked, hurt like hell. I’d been motherfucking rope-a-doped. Like Ali had done with Forman, he used my anger to provoke me into attacking. The ropes were taking the strain of my ineffectual hits while my energy level plummeted. The referee pulled him off with a warning when he cut above my eye. We danced around each other for a few more seconds, but when the bell rang again, we both sat down looking like we’d done ten rounds, not two. Going against the norm, it was Kieran who gave me the pep talk, while Danny sorted out my cut. For the whole sixty seconds, Danny didn’t say a fucking word. He simply squeezed my shoulder as a silent gesture of support as he climbed out of the ring. The next ten rounds were absolutely brutal. We both punished each other, and the whole thing was more like a street brawl than a professional boxing match. The only reason the ref never called it was because we were both as bad as each other. When the bell rang out for the final time, I was banged up and exhausted. The cut had reopened, and the blood was streaming down my face. Both Kieran and Danny were uncharacteristically silent as they patched me up. After a few minutes, the ref called us back in the ring. I looked for Em in the crowd as he called out how the judges had scored the fight. I wasn’t really listening until he finished. “Ladies and gentleman, your winner by unanimous decision. Rico Temple.” He raised Temple’s arm in the air as I locked eyes with my wife. She looked sad, and I guess she thought I’d be worried about the loss. I wasn’t. In my head, I’d just gone twelve rounds against Frank. All I felt was relief and the burning need to do it all over again.