Fighting to the Death

by Carl Merritt

  If that Spaniard had looked wiry and fit as a fiddle like Jean Claude Van Damme at his peak with veins sticking out and muscles to match I would definitely have thought twice about it. But this fella was meat to the slaughter. I had no doubts. But then I couldn’t afford to have any, could I?

  If I’d thought there was any chance of getting beaten I would have asked for a lot more cash because that loser’s money was chickenfeed to me. I’d have wanted more than double that fee just to walk into a fight arena. But I knew that Spaniard was a useless lump. No way was he the real McCoy. He might have been a bit of a hard man, but he moved and talked too slowly to be any real threat. And he never once got up out of his chair for me to take a proper look at him. Seeing that gut on him had been more than enough for me.

  I knew I had a maximum of four weeks to sort myself out physically, which is not a lot of time when you’ve been out of the game for so long. My regular work as a builder was physical, but this was a different kettle of fish altogether. I went down the gym every day and started working on a bag to strengthen up. I hadn’t used a bag in years and it took me a week just to get back into the swing of it, but then I started to really enjoy it.

  I told Carole I was going to the gym, but I didn’t say why. At first she didn’t suspect a thing and just thought I was on a health kick. But then she noticed I was also watching my food. I started insisting on mainly white meat and salads and rice and pasta and things like that. No chips. So when I started stuffing back huge bowls of spaghetti it was pretty obvious to Carole that I was up to no good. After all, I’m not really a big eater usually. I like drinking fluids like milk and all those nourishment drinks but when I started asking her to pick up 24 cans of nutridrink at the supermarket she got well suspicious.

  A couple of weeks after I’d agreed to the fight, Carole fronted me up one night.

  ‘Wot’s goin’ on, Carl?’ she asked.

  ‘Wot you mean, babes?’

  I must have looked a bit shifty when I replied but in my heart of hearts I knew there was no point in lying. So I hesitated and then told her everything. I had to. She hit the roof.

  ‘What the hell are you playin’ at?’ Carole screamed.

  ‘It’ll be easy,’ I said, trying desperately to make it all sound very ‘normal’.

  But Carole was far from convinced.

  ‘I want a divorce,’ she screamed at me. ‘I’m not gonna let you put me through this again.’

  I was absolutely stunned and backed down immediately.

  ‘I’ll call it off then,’ I said. ‘It’s only money. It ain’t that important. Just money that we desperately need.’

  Trying the old emotional blackmail routine was like a red rag to a bull in a chinashop.

  ‘I don’t want anything to do with this,’ said Carole. ‘You told me you’d never fight again and you’ve lied. I’ve had it with you.’

  I held my hands up.

  ‘Alright. Alright. I won’t do it. I promise.’

  But I was lying. Carole knew it and so did I. I was hooked in. I could tell immediately from the look on her face she knew I was still going through with it.

  We never mentioned it again but Carole made sure I knew how she felt by not talking to me. She was steaming mad with me and I was more scared by that than any scrap in a cage. I didn’t want to lose Carole and the girls. Nothing was worth that. But something was driving me on to do this fight. I don’t know if it was pride, the money or just a bit of old fashioned recklessness, but I still wanted to do it. What a selfish bastard I was.

  And Carole remained deadly serious about getting a divorce. I knew she meant it because of the way she’d completely stopped talking to me. Worse still, I’d come home from work and she wouldn’t be there. If she was, she’d glare at me and not say a word. I felt like shit but I never once truly considered backing out of that fight. What the hell was going on in my head? My own beloved wife was looking daggers at me every minute of the day. You could cut the atmosphere in the house with a sledgehammer. She didn’t want to know me. I felt completely alone in many ways but maybe that was the way I liked it? Maybe that was the best way to prepare for a fight? I must have been off my rocker.

  But all the way through that training period I kept telling myself I needed the money and I wanted to believe I was still a top fighter. The way that Spaniard had come across in the boozer that day had narked me. I didn’t like his attitude one bit. He thought he could take me easy and I wasn’t having any of that. No way. I’ll take you out. No trouble, I thought to myself. Fuck knows if I was right.

  About a week before the fight, I met up with Dan again and he’d spoken to the promoter who said everything was now laid on. We decided to get a couple of minders to come along to the fight just in case there were any problems. After all, we had no guarantee we’d get the cash right afterwards so these heavies would make sure I got what was rightfully mine – my winner’s fee.

  I had the feeling this scrap would be much more out in the open than all those other fights I’d had across the globe. The same basic anything-goes rules applied. But the build-up didn’t seem so shady. Those old promoters Kenny and Bill had definitely kept it all so cloak and dagger to stop me getting too involved. Those two old bastards didn’t want to tell me what they were earning and that was also why they always sprung it on me at the last minute. Dan and this new bunch were much more up front.

  Dan told me during that meet in the pub that the location would be my old stomping ground of Dagenham, not far from those docks where I’d once got such a bad pasting.

  Dan said he didn’t know much more about the Spaniard but he was still very confident I’d have him. I intended to give Dan £2,000 out of my purse if I won.

  The day before the fight I plucked up the courage to tell Carole about the details of the fight and that it was scheduled to happen at eight the following evening.

  ‘It’s tomorrow, babes.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ was her only response. But I felt that by telling her at least I’d been honest about it all.

  That day of the fight I trained hard. I started with a run for half a mile, then a bit of bag work down the gym. Back home I ate well and gulped down a lot of water.

  I knew the key to my success was in my head not body. I needed to take myself down a tunnel of concentration so that by the time I took a crack at that Spaniard I’d be virtually invincible.

  But Carole was still not talking to me.

  So I got up, walked towards the hall of the house and said I’d be back in two hours. That was a pretty stupid thing to say since I might not get back at all if that Spaniard proved a genuine killer.

  All she muttered was, ‘I’m not happy, Carl.’

  With the actual fight now just hours away it started dawning on me what I’d committed to and I began to feel a bit nervous for the first time. I’d done some hard training but three weeks isn’t long to prepare for a no-rules fight that might be to the death.

  Dan picked me up in his Transit van. It was a Friday night. No fancy Jags and promoters in sheepskin coats this time. The two minders – both armed in case of emergencies – followed behind in a car.

  Less than half an hour later, we pulled into an industrial park near Dagenham Old Docks, next to a KFC, and Dan simply said, ‘We’re here’. I noticed dim lights through a big open door into a warehouse and then saw the headlight beams of loads of cars gathered around inside.

  As we drove in, I also saw there wasn’t a cage in sight. It was an open arena. I’d thought it was going to be a closed arena, at least a cattle shed to keep the fighters hemmed in. Dan didn’t say a word but I could tell he was as surprised as me. But it was too late to turn round and leave.

  Lots of heavy looking characters were standing around by their cars which all had their headlights on full beam. It looked just like the opening to that Michael Caine film Shiner, which I’d worked on as a consultant.

  I was already well hyped up and couldn’t wait to get started so I g
ot straight out of the van just as a big black Merc with smoked-out windows glided into the warehouse. The fat Spaniard got out of it. Flash bastard was behaving as if he’d already won. I ignored him and got into the arena and began warming up. I was wearing thin layer bag gloves with cut away fingers so I could still grab him when I wanted. There were no rules about gloves although obviously I couldn’t have got away with wearing knuckle dusters!

  Meanwhile the fat Spaniard was lumbering around as if he owned the place, with three or four blokes around him for protection. As I looked across at him, I’ll swear he had a bit of onion ring hanging out of the corner of his mouth so I shouted at him, ‘You still eatin’?’

  It was just a bit of harmless theatre although from the look on his face he didn’t get the joke at all – but I’ll swear he checked just to see if there was any food on his face.

  Then the Spaniard moved towards me, frowning to try and look like a tough nut. It was pathetic. He was in jeans, boots and badly fitted t-shirt and his belly was bursting out all over the place. I had this tight khaki t-shirt with full army trousers from a surplus store and it made me look like a squaddie. I even had on black army boots.

  So he walked across from one corner of the arena to the other and then suddenly starts charging towards me like a flabby rhino. I side-stepped him and banged him straight in the ear as he passed and he went sideways onto the floor. Then he got up and charged again. This time I moved the other way and banged him on the other ear. It was all so bloody easy.

  The fat bastard was stumbling all over the floor after that second hit. He couldn’t cope with it. Then I got him square on the nose, which then burst like a balloon. Bits of gristle flying in all directions. Blood streaming down his face. I even stepped back for a moment to let him compose himself. I must have been going soft with old age.

  Then he charged right at me but I side-stepped him and as he passed each time I kneed him straight in the ribs. The third time he went crashing to the floor and I steamed in and crunched on his neck. Then I smacked him a couple of times and he went out like a light. No one stopped the fight. I just stopped myself. I could have carried on mashing his head but that’s not my scene. I’d finished the job already so there was no need to kill the geezer. He was out cold. End of story.

  Now we had to get out of that arena in double quick time. I couldn’t believe how easy it had been. In less than three and a half minutes I’d copped ten grand. Trouble was that once the fat Spaniard had hit the floor bottles started flying in because these punters were angry at having lost a few bob. If I’d been in a cage like normal I’d have been perfectly safe because whatever they threw at you, it wouldn’t actually hit you. But this was seriously hazardous. I was also so hyped up I’d started taunting the customers which didn’t help. The crowd were going berserk because they’d put all their money on the fat Spaniard. They’d never even heard of me. There were screams of ‘fix’ because these sorts of characters don’t like losing their hard earned cash. In some ways it was a rougher, younger crowd than usual.

  In the middle of all this bedlam, I was relieved to notice Dan walking straight over to the promoter and getting my money on the spot. He then beckoned me over and I wiped my sweat-drenched nose and we marched off towards the van. Trouble was that the crowd was now going completely AWOL.

  As a mob of blokes encircled us I just managed to pile into the Transit front seat. Our two minders scrambled into the car behind us and we drove out of that warehouse at high speed.

  Dan was as calm as ever and all he said to me was, ‘Where d’you want to go, son?’

  ‘Home,’ I said.

  And that was it. Easiest £10,000 I ever earned in me life.

  Less than an hour later I was walking up the garden path to my house with hardly a scratch on me. Carole ripped open the door before my boot touched the doorstep.

  I walked calmly past her and slapped all the cash down on the kitchen table and said, ‘There’s yer money.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been that easy?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Easy as pie.’

  Carole didn’t exactly give me a hug and a kiss on the spot, but seeing I was in one piece made it easier for her to forget how I’d defied her and gone back into the fight game. I was feeling on top of the moon. I’d just earned more in less than three minutes than I could earn in three months in the building trade. The old fight bug had bitten and now my biggest problem was resisting the temptation to have another lucrative scrap.

  Epilogue: Last Man Standing

  Everything back at home seemed to return to normal really quickly. I guess Carole was relieved to see I hadn’t been hurt and she’d forgiven me although I stayed in training. When she had a dig at me about it I just said, ‘I dunno why I’m still training. I just want to stay fit, babes.’ But in the back of my mind I was still thinking about the fight game. Maybe she knew that all along?

  Surprise, surprise. Just two weeks after mashing that fat Spaniard to pieces I got offered more work. It just ain’t that easy to turn your back on it.

  Truth is I really fancied my chances and my promoter mate Dan had already made it clear there might be more work on the way home after I’d beaten that fat Spaniard.

  Then two weeks later I got a call from Dan.

  ‘I got one lined up, son,’ he said. ‘Younger fella and it’s gonna be in Southend.’

  I didn’t ask much else except, ‘Do we have to have a meet with him?’

  ‘No. I ain’t seen him but I heard he’s quite a fit geezer. A kick boxer about 28 or 30, something like that.’

  I didn’t really take on board what he was saying there and then because I was still on a high at the time. I wasn’t worried. I reckoned I could take anyone on without a problem.

  But I didn’t dare tell Carole because I knew this time she’d really kill me if she found out.

  The fight was scheduled for two weeks later. I was already fit from training for the last dust-up so I didn’t really care when it was going to be. Dan said the money was the same and so were the promoters. But none of that interested me. I should have known better.

  Back at home Carole had put the money from the last fight in the bank. Meanwhile I was still eating special food and I’d completely knocked the beer on the head, which was what really bothered her. She sensed something was happening but she couldn’t be sure what it was. But I chose to stay quiet again.

  * * *

  The fight was on a Saturday night and that morning I had a run and went down the gym before eating a massive pasta lunch. Then at about six o’clock I just blurted it out to Carole. ‘I’m just poppin’ out for a while.’

  And she went, ‘What, on a Saturday?’

  I took a big gulp and thought, ‘Oh well, in for a penny…’

  ‘To tell you the truth I got another fight on tonight.’

  I could see the steam building up inside her head as my words sunk in.

  And it didn’t help much when I added, ‘Don’t worry, babes, I’ll be back in two hours.’

  That’s when she screamed and gave me a slap. Thank God the kids were upstairs in their bedroom at the time so they didn’t hear a thing.

  Carole said she’d had enough and called me a lying bastard and everything else under the sun, which I thoroughly deserved. She was angrier than I had ever seen her but she didn’t try and stop me. She just said, ‘Get out! Get out and don’t ever come back.’

  I was being such a selfish bastard I deserved to be divorced there and then. All I could think about was myself, not Carole and the kids. But that’s what being hyped up for a fight does to you. I kept telling myself I was doing it for the money, which would go towards the future of my kids. I wanted the money for them. I honestly did.

  So I walked out of the house with Carole still screaming and blocked it all out of my mind. I was focused on only one thing – that fight. I got in my Volvo shaking with rage and drove off not knowing if I’d have a family to come back to later that evening.
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br />   It took me under forty minutes to get to Southend, where I was due to meet Dan near the town’s famous pier. I soon spotted him waiting in his van and joined him. This time those same two minders were in the back of Dan’s vehicle, packing tools once again.

  We drove off to another industrial park and a few minutes later turned up a sloping entrance towards a warehouse. Through the small entrance I could see it was all lit up inside. As we drove in, we passed forklift trucks and boxes scattered across the concrete floor.

  This time there was a cage of sorts consisting of metal fencing with concrete blocks holding it down like you get on building sites. It had been arranged like an eight-sided cage without a roof.

  Anyway, we pulled up next to it and suddenly all these car headlights outside the cage lit up. It was very theatrical and dramatic. I’d been in a lot weirder places than this so I wasn’t bothered by any of it. But this time there were a lot more people than usual.

  I got out of Dan’s van and walked straight towards the cage where some big fat bald-headed geezer dragged the fence with the concrete weights open for me to go in. I was in the same khaki gear I wore against the fat Spaniard which I now considered to be lucky after my last fight.

  My opponent was already in there kicking around and when I first caught sight of him I thought, ‘Fuckin’ hell. He looks fit.’ He was about my height, my sort of weight but clearly fitter and younger than me. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d presumed.

  He looked a bit eastern European although I never actually found out his name let alone where he came from. Anyway, I continued into the cage as the fat bloke dragged the gate shut.

  Now we’re off.

  My opponent came straight at me, kicking out skilfully and quickly. I was on the floor in seconds. Then I punched upwards from the floor into his bollocks to try and slow him down only to find he had a bloody box on. So I grabbed at his box and started to drag him over. Then he kicked me very accurately on the chin as he finally tumbled over. I felt two of my teeth clatter together and snap as his kick connected with my face. Later I realised they’d flown out of my mouth, although I didn’t notice any of this at the time.