This is it, I thought, this is where I can win it all. The air in the arena was eccentric with people anticipating the fight. I wiped the sweat off my forehead.
“Hey Mike, calm down.”
I looked up and saw my trainer.
“Just give it your all out there,” he says.
“But what if I don’t win?” I reply.
“Winning is great and all, but in the end it is because of your hard work so you better give me one hundred percent out there!”
I simply nod my head and stare at the wall. The odds had me at 100-1 and I was going up against the undefeated champion, Buster Tyson. It was safe to say that no one expected me to win, but just a year ago I was working minimum wage so this was an amazing experience for me. I had to win 10 fights in a row just for this title shot; I was not about to let it all amount to nothing.
I heard the announcer start to shout and the adrenaline in my body started to build up.
“In the blue corner, hailing from Palm Beach, FL, weighing at 255 pounds, Mike Puzo!”
I walked out to my music and I couldn’t hear all the cheers. My eyes were fixated on the ring. I entered and went into my corner.
“And now the undisputed, undefeated heavyweight champion, hailing from Las Vegas, NV, weighing at 260 pounds, Buster Tyson!”
Walking out, Tyson had his arms raised as the stadium erupted in cheers. This was it. Tyson walked into the ring and gave the referee the belt. He grinned at me and I gave him a cold glaring stare back. Time seemed to slow down as we touched gloves and returned to our respective corners. The bell rung for the first round. We circle around each other, both predators staring down their prey. Then, suddenly, a fist hits the right side of my face. The jarring pain reminds me just who I am up against. Buster Tyson, the reigning heavyweight champion who has held onto his belt for 5 straight years; he is known to knock his opponents out. Damn, I thought, this is gonna be tough. The crowd is going wild for that first punch. I get myself together and focus on boxing. I try to throw a right hook, but it is blocked. He keeps pummeling me throughout the first round and I am helpless. By the end of the first round, my entire face is bloody. My trainer and the people in my corner clean me up.
“This doesn’t look good Mike,” he says.
“I know.”
“Whatcha gonna do about it?”
I take a long sip of water as I think about this. What can I do? I am up against an opponent who everyone believes is going to win. Is there any reason to even try? Will all my hard work be for nothing? All those days spent in the gym, all those days spent with my trainer instead of my family, will it all be for nothing? No, I think to myself, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. I take a deep breath as the bell rings for round two and get up to fight.
Tyson now looks relaxed as he has finally entered his groove. He knows he can just bully me in the ring and that is what I want him to do. If he wastes all his strength in the early rounds, I might be able to capitalize in the later rounds. He is still at near full energy so I have to take some blows before that can happen. He absolutely pummels me in the second round. A hook here, a jab there, it looks as if he is running away with this fight. I see him over in his corner receiving high-fives and pats on the back from his entourage. My trainer’s face is as red as a cherry.
“What the hell are you doing out there, Mike?!”
To him, it looked like I was just letting him beat me up.
“If you keep fighting like that, you are going to be the laughingstock of this industry!”
“Do you think I’m taking punches on purpose?”
Finally, I see my trainer’s face relax as he understands what I am doing.
“Do you think it’s going to work?”
“I can’t get through his defense and I can’t keep up with his heavy blows, but maybe, just maybe, I can outlast him in this fight.”
I am hoping I can back up those words as the bell rings for the third round. I fight back a little in this round, getting a few nice jabs and hooks in. Then in the second minute of the third round, I was caught off guard. Tyson unleashed a devastating right hook that completely put me on the ground. I regained consciousness at the 6 count. I can’t let it end now, I think to myself. I lay on the ground for 2 more seconds and then get up. I can see that he had put everything he had into punch. I was shaken, but not done yet. I went back to my corner as the third round ended and my trainer wipes the sweat of my brow. I chug down my water and look my trainer in the eye.
“I’m going to take Tyson the distance. He is getting tired, I can see it.”
That’s right, his movements are not as quick as before and his punches are carrying less weight now. Compared to the first two rounds, this round was actually fairly easy.
My trainer asks, “Are you sure about this?”
“Positive.”
I am energized going into the fourth round and I would say that was the first round we went even on. He was obviously getting tired. I kept going even in the next six rounds, until we reached the eleventh round. By now, I thought to myself, the bookies must be furious. I was a nobody up against the champion and it seemed relatively even now. Tyson was very visibly exhausted; nobody had taken him this far before. As the bell rung for the eleventh round, I told myself to give it my all. I came out of the gates swinging for the fences. In the round, I just used simple three punch combos to wear him down. Then, in the second minute of the eleventh round, I resolved to end this fight. I put everything I had into my right fist, all the hard work and grueling training I did to get to this point, and just released the punch. It connected right on his jaw, and I could tell from the way he fell down that he wouldn’t be getting up after that. The referee counted and with every second, it seemed that the crowd got even more electrifying. When the ref’s count reached ten, the arena went quiet. The silence lasted only a second as directly after the crowd went ecstatic. The titan, Buster Tyson, had just been defeated by a nobody in the boxing world. As this thought set in, the crowd started to cheer my name.
“Mike, Mike, Mike..”
I could not believe I had just won. All of those thoughts that I could win, I was just telling myself that so I would not give up, but now that I had actually won, I could not believe it. Huh, I thought to myself, when did these tears get here?
“Mike!”
I turned around and saw my trainer running at me. I embraced him in a big hug. I saw the referee coming to me and I saw the title in his hands. My hands were shaking as he handed me the title. I just stared at it for a few second. Then, slowly, with the world watching, I raised one fist in triumph.