I rotated my shoulders and shook out my arms as I waited for the bell. The emcee climbed into the ring and circled around as he waited for the crowd to settle. I’d met him a couple of times before, and he seemed like a really nice guy. He even came to wish me luck earlier on. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who thought that Rico Temple was an arsehole.
When the crowd finally calmed down enough for him to speak, he raised his microphone, and his booming voice echoed across the arena. “Ladies and gentlemen. I’d like to welcome you to the MGM Grand Garden Arena, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. AL Promotions presents the main event of the evening. Twelve rounds of boxing for the WBO Heavyweight Championship of the World. And now the officials are ready. The fighters are ready. Are you ready?” he called out, getting the crowd all riled up again.
“Boxing fans, ARE YOU READY?” he called out, and the crowd screamed back at him. “For the sixteen thousand eight hundred fans here in attendance at the MGM Grand Garden Arena and the millions watching around the world, courtesy of HBO, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get ready to ruuummmbbble!” The whole arena was electrified, his words switching them on and bringing them to life.
“Introducing first, fighting out of the red corner, standing with his head coach Danny Driscoll, wearing green-and-white shorts and officially weighing in at two hundred twenty pounds. Tonight with honor, he challenges for the World Heavyweight title. The fighting pride of Ireland, Cormac ‘The Hurricane’ O’Connell.” The crowd erupted, and I raised my hand in the air in silent thanks.
“And his opponent across the ring. Fighting out of the blue corner, with his head coach Aaron Beaumont, wearing red-white-and-blue shorts. His official weight being two hundred twenty-three pounds, ladies and gentlemen, introducing from Detroit, right here in the USA, the current WBO Champion of the World, Rico ‘Double Tap’ Temple.” His fans screamed and hollered as people cleared out of the ring. Kieran removed my robe, and Danny put the gum shield into my mouth.
“I hope you took a picture, ’cause that face ain’t gonna be so pretty when you come out,” Danny joked.
“Well he’s fucked then, ’cause if he fights Temple like he did last time, his looks’ll be the only thing he’s got going for him,” Kieran replied with a chuckle.
“Your confidence in me is fucking overwhelming,” I mumbled at them through my gum shield.
“Ah, put your big girl pants on,” Danny barked at me. “Last time you fought this fucker, I told you to make him work for it. Now I’m telling you the same thing. I want five or six rounds nice and easy. Make him think you’re nervous. Make him throw and miss his punches. When he starts getting tired, but figures he’s got you on points, I want you to let him have it. I want you shocking the hell out of this crowd and lead southpaw.”
I nodded my head to let him know I understood. I knew the game plan, and I was following it this time. I would be disciplined and precise, but fucking brutal. Rico Temple wouldn’t know what hit him.
When we came to the center of the ring, the referee called for a clean fight. Temple smirked at me, and I regretted that I couldn’t give him the finger. I held out my gloves like last time, knowing he’d ignore them. Fuck him if he wanted to be a bad sportsman.
He knocked my hands away then laughed when the crowd jeered at him. I flexed my shoulders and shook out my arms as I waited for the glorious sound of the bell to ring. When it did, I came out ready to dance. Temple didn’t expect it. He knew I was hungry for this, and my bet was that he thought I’d follow the same play as last time. The cocky, inexperienced kid who thought he had a shot at the title at twenty-four. This time I did exactly as I was fucking told. I wouldn’t be letting Danny down twice. I’d given Temple a shit performance last time, so I could forgive him for not knowing what a fucking amazing boxer I could be.
The first minute or two, he watched me bob and weave my way around the canvas, almost taunting him to take a shot. I wasn’t being edged into a corner or against the ropes. If this fucker wanted me, he could come and get me. He threw out a couple of wild jabs to goad me into attacking, but after a couple of minutes, he knew the fight wasn’t going to go down like he expected. That might have been the point that I winked at him. Of course Temple didn’t appreciate my newfound take on anger management. In fact, I’m pretty sure from the way he grunted and charged at me, that the wink pissed him off. He threw combination after combination at me, but I kept my guard up. I imagine it would have made a great news story to say that he knocked me out in the first round, but today wasn’t Temple’s day. It was mine. I let him wear himself out until the bell rang, then winked at him again. Fuck him.
“Well, I like your style, Con, but I don’t think Temple’s a big fan of your work,” Kieran told me as I sat down on the corner stool.
“Shame, that. I think we could ’ave been mates,” I gasped, before Kier filled my mouth with water.
“You’re doing good, Con. You’re doing real good. Just keep out of the way of that monster right hand of his. Don’t get sloppy and leave yourself open, or this thing’s gonna be over before it even starts.” I nodded, taking Danny’s advice before I was standing and the bell rang out again.
For the next four rounds, my feet barely touched the canvas. I was fast but not invisible. Even with my guard up high, this fucker hit like a wrecking ball. The whole fight was playing out almost like a complete reversal of the exhibition bout. The calmer I was, the angrier he became. I dropped my guard a few times, and he caught me with a couple of jabs, one of which cut the corner of my left eye.
When the bell rang, signaling the end of round five, I was about done with this passive bullshit. “Dan, he ain’t tiring out as quickly as we thought. If I don’t get him on a knockout, I might end up losing this thing on points,” I panted, as Danny treated my bloodied eye.
“He’s getting frustrated, but ain’t letting go of this title easy. You’ve done enough to wear him down, now you start showing me some magic. But no going southpaw yet. You hold that back until you need it at the end,” Danny advised me.
When he’d finished with my eye, I swilled around some water then spat it back out. The minute the bell rang, I was off that stool and looking for an opening. Temple threw a couple of jabs, expecting what I’d been showing him for the last five rounds. This time I didn’t let a single jab connect.
As I ducked and sidestepped a second time, he dropped his guard, and that was it. Like the whole thing was happening in slow motion, I saw my window of opportunity and took it. Years of push-ups, pull-ups, and bench presses and a lifetime of pain and discipline went into that punch. My right jab caught his attention but I followed it up with a left hook that connected with his torso. I know he felt that down to his foundation. A perfectly executed body shot is a thing of beauty. The head shots look bad, but I just caught this fucker in the liver. From the look on his face, the pain was crippling.
The crowd went crazy. If I’d hit any other fighter like that, he’d be on his knees or flat out on the canvas by now. As cocky as he was, I had to give him credit. He was hard as fucking nails for taking that shot and still standing. For the thirty seconds left in the round, I tried to capitalize on the hit, but he was too good. He stayed out of my way and protected himself. I gave him a pummeling but there was no second opening. As the round ended, he slumped into his corner. He might recover enough to catch his breath in the next few minutes, but as he stared across the canvas at me, all cockiness gone, I knew he understood just how dangerous I was.
The next three rounds were the most difficult I’d ever fought in my career, each one more brutal than the next. The cut to my eye was getting bigger with every punch.
“What do I do about my eye?” I asked Danny during a break.
“Don’t get hit again,” he replied with a chuckle. “Protect the eye and look for an opening. Keep your guard up and don’t fight defensively. He didn’t go down with the liver shot, and that punch was feckin’ perfect. We need the points now so start getting ’em on the scorecard.”
He finished just as the bell rang. Temple immediately went for my face, forcing me to keep my guard up. After a while, he worried more about my face than his own body and I got him again in the torso with a hook. It wasn’t a direct hit. It wasn’t even a good punch but his liver had taken such a blow the first time that even the judges had to see him flinch in pain.
Round ten was an all-out street brawl. This was my wall, the point where I was fatigued and my body wasn’t doing what my brain was telling it to. We were both flagging. The body shots had cost him heavily on points but I was still making up for the early rounds. At this point, nobody could call it, so we both just kept hitting.
My right jab caught him square on the jaw, but I dropped my arm doing it, and he caught me solidly with a right hook. Fuck! My face was probably a fucking mess by now, and my eye felt like it was about to explode. We staggered and were unsteady on our feet, but the ringing of the bell saved us both. I sank onto my corner stool and closed my eyes as Danny cleaned me up and Kier hydrated me. The sound of the crowd was ringing in my ears when I heard her voice. I must have been hit in the head harder than I realized.
“I’m here, I’m here! O’Connell, I made it.” The voice was getting louder. I whipped my head around to see a red-faced Em being ushered up the steps by Kieran.
“Quick, he’s got seconds,” Kieran warned.
“I made it. Baby, I’m here,” she said, laying her palm against my cheek through the ropes.
“You okay, Sunshine?” I asked her through the gum shield, the coppery taste of blood still filling my mouth despite the water.
“I’m fine,” she answered with a laugh, though there were tears in her eyes. “How we doing?” she asked me, looking toward Temple.
“Killing it,” I said, making her smile. Danny climbed out of the ring as she removed her hand.
“I love you,” she told me. Just like when I was doing hanging sit-ups, she was like a shot of adrenaline to my system. My girl was here. She’s made it, and there was no way I was losing now. If I had to bring everything in me to the table, so be it. I wanted to be the only man she saw in this ring, the only one she saw, period.
The bell rang, and I stood in time to see Rico Temple make his fatal mistake. He looked over at my wife, then turned to me and licked his lips. From that moment on, it was all over. Stupid fucker just didn’t know it. I had wanted to win this for Em. Now I wanted to end him for me.
He was expecting me to come at him with all guns blazing, but I didn’t. I shook out my shoulders, bounced around the canvas, and looked like I didn’t have a care in the world. Temple came at me after a few seconds of dancing and threw a jab, followed by a fairly decent hook, or it would have been if it had connected. I was gone before the punch landed.
Switching to fighting left handed, like the boys from Southside had taught me, I completely disorientated him. My combinations before now had probably been as predictable as his. Now I had him against the ropes, and there would be no rope-a-dope this time. His core was taking an absolute pounding. After disrespecting my wife, hell, after even looking at her, I was gonna make him piss blood for a week. There was no break and no letup. I hammered him with every single fucking thing I had.
Sweat and blood dripped down from my eye, but I didn’t pause. This guy was an absolute fucking machine, but so was I. It was a tossup between whether the referee would pull us apart or the bell would ring, when I saw it. That magical opportunity that Danny was always talking about. There were few things in this world that I was good at. Loving my wife was one and boxing was the other. The control I had over my temper was shit, but between those four posts, it was like I could slow everything down and see those gaps in a defense that anyone else would miss.
That was how I knew that my left hook to his body would make him drop his guard to protect his liver. As soon as he did that, I brought my fist up in an uppercut to the face that lifted him off the floor. I stood back, knowing what I’d done.
Temple bounced off the ropes and staggered across the ring before landing on the canvas. From the outside, he looked in much better shape than me, my face bearing most of the cosmetic damage. But where I carried my pain on the exterior, he carried his inside. That last uppercut was enough persuasion for his body to surrender.
As I watched the referee count, I thought of Danny telling me that it didn’t matter if I went down, only if I stayed there. I’d been to that point where you feel like you can’t get any lower. What defines the person you’ll become is whether you get back up when everyone thinks the fight is over. It didn’t matter how many times I went down. I would always get back up because I was a fighter, like Em.
I used to think that being a boxer and a fighter were the same thing. Now I know different. Being a boxer is what I did. Being a fighter is who I was.
When the referee reached seven, Danny stood on the ropes, with Kieran pressed up behind him. By eight, I knew that Temple was done. When the referee reached nine, the whole arena held its breath, and at ten, it erupted. It was over, and the only thing I could think about was having my wife in my arms again.
It amazed me how quickly the ring filled up as soon as the fight was over. People seemed to pour through the ropes like ants, and it pissed me off. Television cameras and microphones were thrust in my face, and despite how I felt about winning, I was going to knock a second person the fuck out if I didn’t get to my wife and the guys soon.
Kieran got to me first, and we threw our arms around each other. “You did it! You fuckin’ crazy Irish bastard!” he screamed.
“We did it,” I told him, and he hugged me again.
From over his shoulder, I could see a shock of blond hair from behind some guy that made me smile. When Em got to me, she held my face in her hands and, with tears streaming down her face, kissed me fiercely. “I’m so proud of you, O’Connell. I knew you could do it!” she said. Throwing my sweaty arms around her waist, I lifted her high so she had to lean down to kiss me again. Then Liam, Tommy, and Earnshaw tackled me so hard that I nearly took Temple’s spot on the canvas. “Where’s Danny?” I asked, but they didn’t know. Kieran removed my gloves, and all six of us held on tight as we made our way to the center of the ring. Rico Temple was on his feet now, looking dazed and more than a little pissed off. I’m betting he’d never lick his lips at another guy again. I didn’t bother trying to keep the enormous grin from my face as the emcee’s booming voice echoed through the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen. After eleven rounds of boxing here at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, I give you the winner by knockout and new WBO World Heavyweight Champion, Cormac ‘the Hurricane’ O’Connell.” I looked at Em and the guys as my hand was held high, and I couldn’t believe we’d all made it. The kids who everyone had written off, who wouldn’t amount to anything even if they survived, were standing here with me. They got me here, and I couldn’t have done this without any of them. No matter what happened, I would no longer be remembered for my fucked-up past, but as the kid who went from nothing to becoming the Heavyweight Champion of the World.
I handed Em my title belt, which seemed way too big for her little arms, and kissed her deeply, making the guys catcall at us. She, Kieran, and all the boys stayed by my side as I answered question after question in front of the cameras. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rico Temple doing the same thing. He was the toughest guy I’d ever fought, and that deserved some respect. Leaving Em with my guys, I made my way to his corner. His trainer held out his hand to me, and I shook it firmly.
“Well done, son. You earned that,” he said, tipping his head toward the belt in my corner.
Temple turned around to face me and looked like he wanted to keep the fight going. Then, with a wry smile, he shook my hand and gave me a bro hug. “It was a good fight, O’Connell, but just so you know, I’m getting my belt back.”
I grinned back at him and knew then that there’d be a rematch in my future. “Bring it on,” I told him.
He laughed and turned back toward his trainer as I looked for Danny. Through the crowd, I could see that the front row was empty, save for one man who looked around the arena like he had no idea how he had ended up there.