by Jeremy Brown
I yelled, “What are the strategies?”
Gil held out a water bottle.
“No, the strategies. I forgot them.”
“Yeah, you got this.”
So much for that.
Aviso sprang into the cage with his hands in the air like he’d already won. He skipped around, blowing kisses to the crowd. When he got near me he shook a finger in my face and pointed to his chest, then grabbed my left arm, tapped the elbow, and yelled, “This belongs to me! It is mine!”
I shoved him away.
He pulled a face and waved a hand in front of his nose, cartwheeled to his corner, and bowed to the arena.
Jim Lincoln introduced us, his voice drowned out first by chants that I would die, then that they were Brazilian. At least the crowd was consistent. Gil and Antonio pulled the banner and dropped away.
The ref, a stocky guy named Hector, walked to the center of the cage and pointed at me.
“Fighter, are you ready?”
I don’t fight carefully.
I don’t fight scared.
Hell, I don’t even fight smart.
I fight hard.
I care more about hurting the other guy than I do about getting hurt.
Knowing Carrasco and his Coluna waited for me and Marcela, I couldn’t do that.
I nodded anyway.
Hector turned to Aviso. “Fighter, are you ready?”
Aviso posed like a matador and nodded.
“Let’s go!”
Aviso strolled out of his corner. I stomped out of mine and we met in the center of the cage. As soon as Aviso was in striking distance he dropped into a loose crouch, hands wheeling in front of his bobbing head.
I kept my hips back, away from any takedown attempts, and threw a straight right. Aviso danced away. My fist came back with no sweat or blood on it.
What’s the goddam strategy?
Destroy his face, slosh his brain around, paint the canvas with him.
No, the other strategy. The smart one.
Gil was yelling something.
Aviso skipped to his right, toward my cocked left hand, crowding it. I cut him off and tried a left hook. Aviso ducked. As my arm swiped above his head he slapped the elbow, shoved me away, and laughed.
“Not yet, man. Not yet!”
I glanced at Gil, who pointed at his own head and shook it while he yelled.
No attacks to the head—that was the strategy.
No wonder I didn’t want to remember it. Every muscle fiber in my body wanted to do just that.
Couldn’t punch him in the head or he’d take me down.
Couldn’t attack the legs or he’d catch a kick and take me down.
What was left?
Just the blocky abs with their highlights and shadows on all the Aviso billboards. A liver tucked in there somewhere, hoping to be overlooked. I had my hands up near my jaw, covering against incoming strikes. But Aviso doesn’t throw punches worth a damn, especially to the face.
I took a deep breath.
Get your shit together.
You trained this for months.
Forget about what’s next.
This fight is in front of you now.
I dropped my hands to chest height, like Gil had drilled over and over. Aviso punched me in the face and sprang back out of reach. It happened so fast I tried to deny it, but the sting around my left eye objected.
Aviso grinned.
Well, fuck all that.
I drove in, chin tucked and fists pumping. It didn’t matter what they hit—shoulder, biceps, ribs, referee—the aftershocks would shake something loose. Aviso leaned back and slid his feet around. My thumb knuckle grazed the top of his head, and that’s the closest I came before he shot in, hooked an ankle with his leg and pulled it out from under me.
I tried to pry him off as I went down but he was a tumor, latched around my abdomen and weaving himself into me.
I landed on my back in the center of the cage with Aviso on top of me.
During training, this was referred to as The Worst Thing Possible.
Aviso’s knees dug into my sides and his hips dropped onto my belly. I tried rolling right but someone had stacked wet sandbags around me.
He stuck the top of his head under my chin and shoved forward, trying to get me to reach up and push him away, exposing my arms. I kept my elbows tucked, found his wrists between our chests and grabbed both of them.
Aviso shouted, “You ready? You ready?”
He pulled a hand free and smacked me in the ribs a few times before I caught it again.
“I think you might be. I gonna break your arm, man.”
The crowd was a distant roar, surf crashing while I fought for my life on shore.
Aviso popped up, yanked his hands free and looped both fists into my head. The strikes were fast, but I’d hesitate to call them punches. I’d taken worse in light sparring at the Fight House.
I let Aviso have his slap fight and hammered a short left into his abdomen, twisting my whole body into it. The ribs flexed in and out like an aluminum can. Aviso grunted and came back down to put his head under my chin.
I asked him, “Didn’t like that, huh?”
“That’s the arm I gonna break for you. But first I cook you, man. Get you nice and soft.”
He fought to get his left hand loose and patty-caked it into the side of my head a few times. I took the opportunity to bash his ribs with my right, one solid thud for every three taps.
“You relax for one blink, man, I snap it. Maybe I go now, huh?”
Hector the ref barked at us. “Get busy, gentlemen.”
Aviso landed a few more punches, a bit of weight behind them. My skull finally noticed we were in a fight.
Rolling with Jairo, I’d been on my back plenty of times. He had a brutal, smothering strength. It was like being mauled by a crocodile with gorilla arms. Aviso was just as strong, which surprised me, but his strength was different—wiry, steel cables cinching tight. I’d move to create space between us and he’d ratchet tighter, closing the gap and claiming that space as his own. We were in trench warfare, and I was losing ground.
Without intending to, I’d kept my left arm out of the action. Beyond Aviso’s head, up near the lights, Carrasco and his Coluna hovered.
Don’t get hurt.
My feet kicked around. Hips rocked side to side, trying to dump Aviso off. He was a leech.
“You simmering now, huh? I gonna turn up the heat.”
He sat back and dropped two quick hammerfists onto my face and crashed back down before I could counter.
“Why don’t you just get up? Don’t they teach you how to get up? It’s so easy, man. You cooking yet?”
My left arm moved a fraction, a sliver of light between my ribs and elbow. Aviso dove on it. I tensed, panicked, and never saw the right elbow he slammed into my eye socket.
My head bounced off the canvas, again, again.
The scar tissue split apart. Blood ran over the bridge of my nose into my left eye.
“Defend yourself,” Hector yelled.
I rolled into the next elbow, caught it between the eyes and kept going. Because Aviso’s right arm was busy chopping my face he couldn’t post out to that side and stop me. His thighs dug in but I was sweaty, slick, and managed to get onto my knees and elbows.
I never like giving a guy my back—especially a master grappler like Aviso—but it was better than Hector stopping the fight or Aviso smashing my head until he could rip my arm off and take it home with him.
Don’t get hurt.
Now I had to worry about a rear-naked choke as well as Aviso scooping the arm from behind in some jiu jitsu wizardry. He tucked his head behind mine and tried to wedge his right forearm across my throat.
“Hey, you know how to count in Portuguese? Ready? Três . . .”
His left arm snaked over my left shoulder and grabbed my wrist.
What the fuck is he doing?
“Dois.”
I felt him take a deep b
reath against my back, loading up for something.
Choke?
Armbar?
Well don’t sit here waiting for it.
I stood up. Aviso clung to my back and wrapped a long leg around my stomach, hooked the other knee over that ankle and crushed my guts in a body triangle. Everything rose against my diaphragm and cut off half my lungs. He let go of my arm and focused on getting the rear-naked choke.
I faced the center of the cage and leaned back.
Aviso and his coaches must have watched my fight against Zombi. When that cyborg had me in a similar pickle, the black curtains closing from no blood getting to my brain, I dove head-first into the canvas, knocking myself for a loop and Zombi out cold.
I widened my stance for maximum torque while Aviso scrambled for the choke. I pulled his wrists away and blinked blood out my eyes, then rocked forward.
Aviso sprang off my back. I tucked into a shoulder roll and came up facing the cage, turned and wiped blood from my eyes.
Hector leaned in. “Can you see?”
“Just fine.”
Aviso stood in the middle of the canvas, waving me forward. “You almost done, man. I cook you first, then I burn you up.”
I closed the distance, hands near my shoulders.
The crowd noise was there, drowned by the racket in my head.
Don’t get hurt.
Straight right toward his solar plexus.
He dodged.
I followed.
Don’t get hurt.
Left push-kick to the belly that missed and almost got caught as he sidestepped.
I stalked him around the perimeter.
Don’t get hurt.
“I making you look stupid, man. Slow.”
He changed directions.
I plodded after him.
“Don’t get hurt, now.”
Hearing the voice out loud made me hesitate, then dive in with a right uppercut followed by a gunshot left hook.
Aviso leaned away from the first and ducked the second. He came in behind it and found me on one foot, off-balance, and took me down easier than Jewish Christmas decorations.
I worked to get him in full guard on the way to the canvas, claimed a small victory in achieving half. I was on my back with his left leg trapped between mine.
“Let’s see how your jiu jitsu is, huh?”
He did something to my knee and twisted his leg out, slid into full mount like we were making a how-to video.
“I don’t think it’s so good, man. Now I count for you in English. You ready?”
I welded my left arm to my ribs.
Aviso fought for it, got his fingers around the wrist and started to pry it away.
“One.”
He put another elbow into my face, planted it across my throat and ground it in.
“Two.”
The horn blasted.
End of round one.
Hector pulled Aviso off and waved him toward his corner.
I rolled onto my hands and knees, watched the fat drops of blood splash onto the canvas below me.
One.
Two.
Three.
I dropped onto the stool. The way things were going, it should have scooted out and let me fall on my ass.
“Terrible,” I said.
Gil dumped water in my mouth. “Nah, he’s running scared.”
“I can’t hit him.”
Hollywood pushed something into the cut over my right eye—his thumb or a compact car—while Antonio slapped an ice pack on the back of my neck to slow the blood flow.
“You will,” Gil said. “It’s working. Just keep it on the feet. Control the distance.”
I shook my head.
“Hold still,” Hollywood said.
I told Gil, “He’s gonna keep running and pick his shots.”
“We know what to do about that. We worked it. Patience. Don’t go headhunting. Work the body. We got two rounds to break him down.”
Which was Gil code for, “You left skid marks on the canvas because you fought like a creeping pile of shit.”
We have a policy at the Fight House: No lying in the cage.
Not to yourself, your coach, your fighter.
Lying to the ref and doctor is okay—they aren’t real people.
Gil was on the verge of breaking that code by telling me I had a chance against Aviso.
We both knew I was outmatched.
I loved him for hiding it and hated myself for how badly I was going to let him down.
He saw it. Put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re okay. You’re fine.”
Antonio touched Gil’s arm, moved it aside, and knelt in front of me. Pressed his palms against my cheeks. His eyes bored into mine, searching.
“What is your mind saying?”
The truth was shameful. But I couldn’t lie.
And he already knew.
“Don’t get hurt.”
Antonio nodded. “Because of Marcela. What you have to do after.”
“Yes.”
“Your head is racing around, too much happening. Not good for fighting. We know this. We saw it with Jairo, eh? So you simplify. What do you want for Aviso?”
“To hit him. Hard.”
“But you can’t reach him.”
“I’m too slow.”
“Very much, yes. What does Aviso want?”
“To rip my arm off.”
Antonio grabbed my left elbow, pulled himself close to me. “To do this he must be close. Here. Tight.”
“Okay.”
He looked from me to Gil, couldn’t believe we didn’t get it. “Give him the arm.”
“Uh,” Gil said.
“Give it to him. Then you are close enough to hit him as much as you want. You can defend the armbar, yes?”
Gil and I shared a silent panic.
“Simplify,” Antonio said. “What is in your head?”
“Don’t get hurt.”
Saying it out loud again felt just as bad as it had the first time.
“Now simplify,” Antonio said. “Remove the negative.”
This took longer than it should have.
“Get hurt,” I said.
“Okay, you are hurt. You are bleeding. Aviso tried to choke you. You are still alive, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Simplify. Only this moment, the present. What are you going to do?”
“Hurt.”
“Who?”
“Aviso.”
The whistle blew.
Antonio stood. “So do it.”
“Come on man, back to the cooking.”
Aviso waited in the center of the cage, hips shaking and fingers wiggling.
Give him the arm.
Everything Gil and I had trained, out the window.
I knew some armbar defenses. Mostly because, early on, I kept getting caught in armbars during training.
All right—no lying in the cage—early on, recently, and currently.
But the primary defense against Aviso was to tap before he snapped my elbow.
If I gave him the arm, would I be able to shut his lights off before that happened?
Simplify.
I pushed Marcela and Carrasco away. Rubin and Malhar, the Coluna. Shoved it all into the corner on top of the black scab that had pried itself loose and infected my thoughts.
Bottom line: Would my desire to hurt my opponent override my fear of getting hurt?
You’re goddam right it would.
Aviso skipped to his right, arms loose.
I pivoted and followed. Tried a right cross that fell short by a bus length.
Aviso grinned. “What you swinging at? You soft yet? You cooked?”
“I’m getting there.”
He laughed. “Yeah, you close, man. You close.”
I cast a left hook out, fishing for anything. In a flash he dug in and planted a front kick into my stomach, sending my hips back and my feet out. I landed on one knee, hands up to protect my face.
/> Aviso bull-rushed, landed an elbow against my forehead and bowled me backward, then latched his right heel behind my left knee so I couldn’t put a kickstand out. I landed on my back, Aviso in the full mount again, slamming fists into my face.
This was going great.
He came down with some elbows. I caught them with my head.
I peeled my left hand away from my ribs and hooked it behind his neck, pulled him close to stop the leveraged strikes.
“Man, I don’t need to break your arm. I gonna beat the shit out of you, huh? I gonna knock you out instead.”
This crossed the line.
He could talk shit all day about choking, submitting, breaking, whatever.
But knockouts were my world.
I provided them quickly and brutally, free of charge if you were begging for one.
And I’d never been on the receiving end of one.
Aviso pissing in my yard was too much.
I shoved him away and put everything behind a left missile aimed for his chin. I’d knocked guys out from my back before.
Happy to do it again.
The fist rose, broke through the atmosphere, and landed right in Aviso’s trap.
As soon as my arm was nearly straight Aviso clamped the wrist with both hands and dropped off to my left side as his right leg whipped over my face and smashed it against the canvas.
His left leg was across my chest, my left arm between his legs. The only thing stopping him from falling back, pulling my arm with him, and popping his hips up against my elbow to snap it was my hand position.
In order to make sure he would break my arm, Aviso needed to pull toward my pinkie. Ideally, he’d have it pressed against his chest with my thumb pointing toward the ceiling when he fell back. This would open my elbow and leave it vulnerable to easy hyperextension and breakage.
Too bad for him, I had my knuckles pressed against his throat while I tried to knock him out with one-centimeter punches under his jaw.
He torqued my wrist, trying to turn the pinkie toward him. “It’s coming man. You ready? Three . . .”
He’d fuck around for only so long before he rocked back and did it the hard way, a vicious yank and hip bridge that would leave my forearm hanging by the skin.
I rolled left and brought my right hand over. I needed to grab my left wrist, hand, whatever I could to keep him from extending it beyond straight. Aviso blocked my right hand with his left foot—his goddam foot—and twisted my pinkie closer to his chest.