Dario

 

December 2015

Las Vegas, NV

 

 

♫ I won't deny it, I'm a straight ridah

You don't wanna fuck with me

Got the police bustin at me

But they can't do nuttin to a G ♫

 

It took me all of eight seconds to come up with the song that I was gonna come out to. Tupac was perfect. There was really no other song that would have been more on time for my entrance for the last fight I would have. I was going out a champ and not many could say that. To be undefeated my entire boxing career was something I would forever be proud of. With my family there to watch and cheer me on, made the event even more epic. My mother never came to the fights because she didn’t want to have to witness a loss. She had stuck to that my entire boxing career—even with all the victories. But tonight, she was right there with everybody else.

My opponent was someone new to me, but just like the ones before, his mouth preceded him. He’d been in the media spouting off threats as well on his social media and all that mess. Same story, different dude. The thing that they hadn’t learned about me yet, unfortunately, was that I wasn’t a talker. There was no need for me to scream from the rooftops that I was coming for blood, I just did. Delo Watts would find out soon enough.

When the bell dinged for the fight to begin, I had one thing on mind and that was to finish this fight so that I could get my celebrations happening. The moment we entered battle mode and dude was able to land a punch, I knew I needed to refocus. I snapped out of the celebratory part of the evening real quick. With his strike, the crowd went crazy with a mixture of boo’s and ahh’s. The smile on Delo’s face told me that he felt as though he’d just hit the jackpot.

“Thought I was gonna be an easy lay, huh?!” he bragged as he threw his next punch.

When I blocked, then locked on his jaw with a left hook, I said nothing, just offered him a smile. He bounced back to escape the second punch I sent his way, but I followed, and connected him twice, making his head bob back from the impact.

“Easy lay?” That’s a fucked up word choice. Makes you sound like a woman!” I taunted. “You said that shit with too much ease!” I remarked, as I connected with his jaw once again. I knew that we shouldn’t have been talking, but he’d started it and so I was going to finish it . . . and him.

After the third round, the momentum had intensified. The moment that the bell sounded, Delo rushed at me. I should've stopped him but I let him progress thinking that he'd come with something more than what he'd had so far. Instead, he immediately wrapped me in a clinch. I already knew that he was leaning toward desperate. If he was everything he said he was pre-bout, there would've been no reason for him to try foolish tactics so early in the match. But he had and it was for sure going to work against him.

When the referee yelled out for us to, “punch out” of the clinch instead of breaking us up and waiting for us to take a full step back, I went to work raining blows that forced him to release his grasp.

Immediately after we separated, I hit him with a string of merciless strikes with no breaks in between. He swung back but with minimal punches landed, it wasn't long before he stumbled backwards. Instead of waiting for him to re-stabilize, I seized the moment to get out this fucking ring early. Shit, it was my retirement and I was ready to leave the goddamn building.

Circling into the sixth round it was clear that Delo had lost some of his wind. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, he had obviously underestimated the heat inside my gloves. Either that, or he just had an overinflated opinion of his own skills. Whatever the case, he had made a fatal mistake. If I had one thing to say to him outside of all of this it would be, “Do your homework, kid.”

“Giving you a run for your money, huh?!” he goaded.

“Try landing your punches and then . . . ask . . . me that!” I yelled at him with each strike.

He managed a smile even with his left eye trying to shut on him and with a slightly dazed look in his eyes. I had to give it to him; he wasn’t going down without a fight. However, when he responded to me by saying, “How about I land your girl instead?” the choice to lay him out came earlier than expected.

Whop! Whop! Whop!

That was the only way to describe the sound that emitted in triplicate from my gloves when they crash landed into Delo’s face with blows to his jaw—the very place his disrespectful words flew from. As he stumbled backwards, I was right there to make sure he had no room to rebound. And when he hit the mat in timber-like fashion, I didn’t even wait for the referee to come do his job before I headed to my corner to speak to my guardian angel in heaven.

“I love you, Luke! Thank you for sharing in my journey and keeping me covered from heaven. I’ll be watching over your son now. I promise to never fail him.”

At those final words I happened to look to my left where I made instant eye contact with Rai who was right beside Freddie jumping up and down in excitement. The two of them were Lucas and me all over again. All I could do was smile amid the first tears I’d shed since . . . forever.