He’s still hard as an iron bar, and it’s going to take quite a few minutes for that to slowly go way.
There’s a silence between us. This happens before every fight, but this time… it feels more pronounced.
“Don’t get too beat up,” I tell him, taking my phone out of my bag quickly and checking it. “I can’t stand watching you get hurt.”
“I promise,” he tells me. I go to him, let him wrap me up in his arms, and I hear him say to me, “I really want to know what you were going to tell me.”
I feel a pang of guilt, but know I can’t distract him during his fight with his toughest opponent yet.
“It’s nothing,” I say. I know it’s a lie but it’s the best thing to do. “I’ll tell you afterward. I promise.”
He nods, accepts what I say, doesn’t push it any further. I love that about him… he knows when to push, and when not to.
He presses his forehead to mine, runs a thumb over my lip. “You are amazing,” he tells me. There is only sincerity in his voice. “The best thing that ever happened to me.”
Then, as if unable to stand that moment of gushiness, he separates from me, and walks around the changing room stretching. He begins his breathing exercises, thumps his shoulders and chest with closed fists, starts to psych himself up for the fight.
I find my underwear on the sofa, pull it on quickly, and then share one last look with him. He nods at me.
Already I can see the fire in his eyes, and that stony expression on his face. He’s getting into his acute zone, that mental realm where he can beat a man to within inches of his life and not have it affect him.
To this day, I don’t know how he does it. Duncan’s never not returned from that realm, even if he sometimes gets a little punch-drunk.
“I’ll be watching,” I tell him.
“Then that means I’ll win.”
“Why’s that?”
“Can’t lose in front of the most beautiful girl in the room.” He smirks playfully.
“Groan,” I say, rolling my eyes. “But you better win. Don’t get hurt, okay?”
“I won’t.”
I leave him then, pick up my bag, and go back out into the fray.
The same three girls who were trying to get in to see Duncan mill about, shoot death-stares my way.
I ignore them, don’t have time for that bullshit.
Duncan’s all mine, anyway, and that’s never going to change.
He’ll now do his final warm-ups, and take his electrolyte-cocktail drinks that he mixes up himself. Fast-acting supplements to prevent cramping, boost overall oxygen uptake, get his balance of minerals right so water isn’t pulled out of his blood and muscles and into his bladder.
He’ll do his stretches, put heating strips on his major muscle groups to dilate the blood vessels there. He’ll do breathing exercises, controlled hyperventilation to saturate his muscles with as much oxygen as possible prior to the fight, to prevent the initial burst of lactic acid build-up that comes with the start to every fight; they go zero-to-one-hundred in under a second in the cage.
I know it all by heart. I’ve researched the biochemistry, helped Duncan to formulate his cocktails. We’ve consulted with nutritionists, doctors, trying to find the perfect balance for Duncan’s body.
His metabolism blazes, and he burns through energy reserves quickly. At just five-percent body-fat, he doesn’t have enough free energy on his body to truly last him through a fight without him feeling fatigued, and we can’t let his blood-sugar levels drop.
There’s no stoppage in underground fighting unless there’s excessive blood. There are no rounds, no breaks. It’s fight until one falls, plain and simple. That means no rehydration. That means no fuel-uptake.
It’s more complicated than the pros, in that respect. You have to get your body more prepared. In the event of stoppage because of too much blood, usually by then it doesn’t matter anymore. If there’s that much blood, somebody needs to go to the hospital.
Duncan will take some slow-release glucose pills to keep his sugar levels up. He’ll take beta-alanine to keep his muscles working efficiently and combat natural fatigue.
But really, in the end, these are all just the small bits that, from the outside, we can control. Most of the work toward winning a fight will be the physical work, something that can’t be band-aided by supplements.
Duncan’s simply going to have to fight better than Manic. I’ve seen the videos of Manic with him, scouted Manic’s fighting style with him.
It’s going to be Duncan’s toughest fight yet. I hate to think it, but there is some flicker of doubt in me that he’ll win this fight.