A Fighting Chance
Written by: Ric
The professional tournament was over. The reporters and camera crews were on their way home. I had filed all my stories and took a week off to attend the amateur tournament. The less frantic atmosphere of the amateurs was just what I needed. I could concentrate on my drawing and hopefully get some good action sketches under my belt.
The first bout of the week was between Ken “The Rock” Billington and a pugilist by the name of Wile E Jones. I was sitting about three rows from the ring. There were not many spectators. I think we were well outnumbered by judges, referees, timekeepers and other assorted “officials”. I had a really good view and readied my sketch book and charcoals for the first bit of action.
The Rock was the first to enter the ring. He was tall and muscular with a face that looked as hard as his nickname. He looked like he was used to winning and strutted around the ring soaking up the applause of the spectators while doing a bit of shadow boxing. He wore a silver robe with the words “The Rock” emblazoned in bright red on the back of it.
From the tunnel blasted the first bars of “Eye of The Tiger”. It was impressively intimidating. Out of the tunnel emerged Wile E and his entourage. Wile E was clad in a white towelling gown. It did not have anything embroidered on it, but I smiled to myself as I imagined it festooned with “Property of The Grand Hotel, High Street”.
As Wile E entered the ring The Rock looked down his nose at him with a look of obvious contempt. It was a look that said “Why must I bother raising a sweat over a little gnat like you?” Wile E was anything but a little gnat. He was not so much tall as broad. He was what can only be described as pudgy. Only his muscular arms alluded to the fact that he might have some skills. Whichever way you looked at it, it seemed a mismatch and Wile E was going to need all his wiles if he was going to escape severe punishment.
The two fighters met in the middle of the ring while the referee spelled out the rules of the bout. They touched gloves, went back to neutral corners, the bell rang and the fight began. The Rock wasted no time with “feeling out” his opponent, but went straight at him with a kick followed by a flurry of punches. I decided to draw very quickly as I did not expect to have the pleasure of their company for much longer.
Poor Wile E was not only having his arse kicked, but his head, kidneys, and virtually every part of his exposed body as well. That he managed to survive the first round was a testimony to his hardiness, but certainly not his fighting acumen. He was not a good looking man and looked even worse for wear as he sat in his corner getting some much needed advice from his handlers. I was of the opinion that their advice was being wasted on a lost cause.
The second round started much as the first had ended, with Wile E getting his head kicked in. Then, in the space of a couple of seconds, the impossible happened. The sure-footed Rock, somehow, lost his footing and tumbled forward at the precise moment that Wile E was lifting his leg to attempt a kick to The Rock’s body. The end result, in more ways than one, was that The Rock’s jaw met with Wile E’s knee with enough force to knock The Rock flat out on his back.
The referee dispensed with the count, waved his hands to declare the fight over and beckoned for the waiting Red Cross men to attend to the beaten fighter. It all happened so quickly that I was at pains to figure out how the skillful Rock could have slipped. There did not seem to be anything on the canvas that could have tripped him up. I then spotted the sly grin on Wile E’s face and realised that it was not for nothing that he had given himself that moniker and me the subject for a great action drawing.
