“Didn’t used to be like that.”
“Yeah, well, it is now.”
Back in the day, I used to spar with Trent regularly. We were friends, maybe not best friends, but I liked the guy. We trained in the same gym and worked with the same coach, and so we were around each other all day every day.
But Trent was a hothead, even more than I was, if that could even be believed. He went off all the time, like a fucking psycho, when things didn’t go his way. Actually, he was like a little baby throwing a temper tantrum.
But that wasn’t what bothered me, not really. True, he was annoying, and it pissed me off that he could get away with acting like a spoiled little bitch sometimes. That alone wasn’t enough to make me despise the guy, though.
What happened was, one day we were sparring. The usual shit, the usual rules. We weren’t supposed to try to fucking kill each other since it was just a friendly little match to hone our skills.
That said, I may have landed a blow I shouldn’t have. It was definitely a little too stiff, a little too tough, and it caught him right on the chin. It was a mistake, the kind of mistake that I’d made a hundred times before, the kind of mistake he made just the day before. We hit each other too hard sometimes, and normally we’d just laugh it off. We weren’t fucking pussies, after all. We didn’t need to have a crying session every time someone accidentally got hurt.
But for whatever reason, that time Trent couldn’t handle it. He went off, screaming and yelling, but instead of getting his shit together, he got violent. When I tried to walk away, he punched me in the back of the head, knocking me to the ground. He kicked me in the face, twice, and ended up knocking out some teeth.
The other guys pulled him away and had to hold me back when I finally got to my feet, mouth bloody, head spinning. Trent was thrown out of the gym for that, but he didn’t stop fighting. Ever since that day, though, I had hated the motherfucker, and I had been praying for the day when I could pay him back for his cowardly fucking bullshit.
“Do you blame me for being close to this?” I said. “You remember what happened. You were there.”
“Yeah, fuck, I was. It was brutal and fucked up, man.”
“And now I want to do that exact same to him, but in the fucking ring.”
Ronnie sighed, and I felt my anger rushing through me. I breathed deeply, just like Skad had taught me out in the jungle, and calmed myself.
“The thing is, Trent isn’t the same hotheaded idiot you hated a year ago. He’s got some decent skills right now.”
“You think I’d lose to him?”
Ronnie laughed. “Fuck no. Not after what I saw the other night. But it’s early days for you, man, real early days. You should be building up your resume before you get involved in some prime-time prize fight.”
“What, are you my fucking manager now?”
“No, but I should be. You know I’m right, man.”
I sighed, wanting to punch the mirror. I knew Ronnie was just looking out for me, but it still pissed me off.
I wasn’t the kind of man to back down from a fight. In MMA, the only reason you wouldn’t take a match was because you didn’t want to fight down to someone’s level or the purse was just too small. It was a business, after all.
But if the purse was decent for the Trent fight, I was taking it.
“Thanks anyway,” I told him, “but I’m going to take the fight.”
“Okay, man. Do what you want. I think it’s the wrong move, but I’m in your corner no matter what.”
“So when will I hear about this?”
“No clue. I just heard the rumor, is all. I bet your manager will have news soon.”
“Okay then. Thanks for the heads up.”
“Everything else good with you?”
“All good. You?”
“Same. I’ll let you get back to it.”
I said goodbye and we hung up. I leaned up against the mirror and felt my heart beating steadily in my chest.
For the last year, as I stressed and trained and worked for Skad out in the jungle, the image of beating the fuck out of Trent on live television kept me going. It motivated me, made me hungry, made me learn every new technique and skill that Skad could teach me.
I hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. Ronnie was right, I should have been busy building up my resume, getting back into the game. I may have been stronger and more skilled than Trent, but that didn’t mean a win was absolutely going to happen. Truthfully, it was a real possibility that I could lose, and a loss to someone like Trent so early in my career could cripple me.
But the imagine of pounding his fucking face bloody, over and over and over, kept playing through my head as I finished my workout.