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“That I won,” I said. I couldn’t stop myself from grinning, and the media crowd laughed along with me. I had to clean up my immature response, though. “I was grateful that I was able to get Adam before he got me. We’d been trading jabs and kicks for two rounds. Both of us escaped a number of takedown attempts. So I was happy to have overpowered him.”
“Hollis, at just nineteen, you’re now two and oh in the light heavyweight class of TCF. How does that make you feel?”
“It feels great. Both men I’ve faced are great fighters. I’m fortunate to be in the cage with any TCF fighter.”
“Adam, there was only one fight you and your team had to study Hollis to train for this fight, and that fight lasted less than a minute. How did you prepare, and what, if anything, did your team underestimate?”
Damn. The media could be brutal. Talk about kicking a guy while he’s down.
“Yeah, just one fight wasn’t a lot for us to go on, and as you said, it wasn’t a lengthy one at that. We studied his fight against Carlos Agustin, but since it was so quick, we had to assume his youth and inexperience was a weakness.”
“And do you still feel Hollis Ward’s youth and lack of fights are weaknesses?”
Adam Novak laughed, which instigated the crowd to laugh.
“No, not at all. The Dragon just has it. He has all the natural talent to make an opponent’s head spin. Literally. His left hook just comes out of nowhere. And he’s crazy fast.”
“Hollis, when you got on stage, why did you go to Adam? What did you say to him?”
What? What kind of a weird question was that? Wasn’t it obvious?
“Um, I told him ‘good fight’ and shook his hand,” I said and looked over at Novak.
“Adam, clearly you weren’t expecting a handshake of sportsmanship, judging by the way you quickly stood up and the rest of your team stepped forward. Why?”
“To be honest, you’re right. I wasn’t expecting him to come over and certainly wasn’t expecting the good show of sportsmanship. Unfortunately, we typically don’t see that from opponents. At least, I don’t. So many fighters want to mouth off for the benefit of the media, and sometimes tempers from the cage spill over into press conferences. I reacted as I did based off prior experiences I’ve had with other fighters. I hope Ward starts a new trend with sportsmanship. It’s long overdue.”
“Hollis, when can we expect your next fight announcement?”
A flurry of follow-up questions was hollered out before I had the chance to reply.
“Hollis, who are you fighting next?”
“Who do you want to fight next, Hollis?”
“Is there anyone you won’t fight?”
“Hollis, will you have another fight before the end of the year?”
The TCF owner, Vin, stepped toward the microphone that separated my team from Novak’s.
“TCF and Team Dragon will announce Hollis Ward’s next fight as soon as we have it arranged,” Vin said.
The press conference wrapped up and then I was allowed to shower and change in peace. I dressed in jeans and a gray t-shirt and wandered into the now empty arena. I walked to the second row where my family had been sitting and sat in the middle of the row. I leaned back in the seat and propped my feet up on the armrests on either side of the seat in front of me.
I focused on the cage, replayed the fight in my mind, and took everything in. After my first fight, there was no time for me to step into the area and absorb everything. I glanced at the spot where I had seen my older self after the fight again. I closed my eyes and pictured him as clear as day. I thought about the press conference and what Novak said about him and his team assuming I was going to cause a problem. Like he said, it was based off expectations from other experiences.
I opened my eyes and imagined my older self staring at me while he stood in the cage. He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up.
I’m going to change the image of this sport for the better.
