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That was a Bulls tradition, so entrenched it was unwritten law: if you got called into the ring, you had to go. It didn’t matter if the complaint was fair, or the pairing was a mismatch. If the complaint wasn’t fair, you balanced that out with your fists. If the pairing was a mismatch, you toughed it out and gained some cred doing so.
You got called into the ring, you were going three rounds or somebody was getting knocked out, whichever came first. Only the president could stop it, and that had happened only twice in Dex’s knowing—and both while Becker was alive and holding the gavel. Dex couldn’t imagine Eight ever getting in the way of a fight. He worked his own shit out with his fists.
It was the right call in this case: the complaint was fair, and the pairing was not a mismatch.
“I’m ready.”
~oOo~
By the time they were both in the ring, everybody had heard what was going on, and all the patches were present. Christian, their prospect, and a couple pump-jockey hangarounds were manning the station; all repair and body work had been put on hold.
Whenever the clubhouse was full of patches, Carly, the head sweetbutt, called in a bunch of girls. Even the Bulls who were married or otherwise tied down liked hot chicks in tight clothes around.
So the ring was surrounded. Their ring was outside, under a freestanding shelter with a corrugated metal roof and canvas sides. There was a patio heater in one corner, but in the winter it was still fucking cold. Everybody around the ring was bundled up.
Dex and Mav were barefoot and bare-chested. Dex wore plain grey sweatpants; Mav wore black track pants. And nothing else. Vapor plumed from their lips with every breath. But once Eight banged the bell and got them started, they’d warm up quick.
Zach Jessup served as Dex’s cornerman. Gunner served as Maverick’s. Mav and Gun were talking constantly as Gun wrapped Mav’s hands. Zach and Dex were silent as Zach wrapped his. Dex never said more than was necessary before or during an engagement, and Zach knew it, so he crouched before Dex and did his job. Dex needed a cornerman only for that; he didn’t want coaching or advice or encouragement. He knew what he was supposed to do.
In this fight, he felt he deserved to be called into the ring. He’d deserved the punch Mav had delivered the night before. But once he was within the ropes, he’d give Mav a real fight. He wouldn’t have fought back last night, but now, this was a battle. There were rules of engagement. Dex meant to engage.
Zach finished his hands. “That feel good?”
Dex flexed and fisted a few times, getting a feel for the way his hands moved within the wrapping, where the give was, and the support. “Yeah, good.”
“Okay.” He gathered up the supplies and stood. Dex found Eight and nodded.
“Mav!” Eight called. “You set?”
“I’m good,” Mav answered. Gun slipped through the ropes and jumped down.
Mav stood. Dex stood. From the side of the ring, Eight called out “Three rounds, five minutes. Don’t fuck with the junk or the eyes. Somebody taps, you back off. You get called off, you back off. Everything else goes. Get this shit outta your system, assholes.” With that, Eight dropped the hammer on the bell.
Maverick had been a professional boxer, and then a street fighter, before he went inside, where he’d fought in the infamously brutal inmate ‘league’ at the Oklahoma State Pen. The guy was tough as fuck. He had killed men in the ring.
But he was in his mid-fifties now, and all that fighting had left permanent damage. He was deaf in one ear and had diminished sight in one eye. His hands were racked with arthritis that would probably put a hard stop to his riding days before he was ready to hang up his kutte. Already he struggled to hold the grips in cold weather.
Didn’t seem to have trouble making fists in this cold today, however.
Dex had never been a professional fighter or even a regular recreational one. But he was heavily trained in various forms of hand-to-hand combat. And he was close to twenty years younger—and, though he had his share of lasting damage from his years in combat, his ears worked, his eyes worked, and his hands were arthritis-free.
They met in the middle of the ring. Mav stood like a boxer, rocking on the balls of his feet, his hands high before his face. Dex was more loose, his feet moving, his hands ready. He had no intention of throwing the first punch.
When Mav did, a jab he fired straight from his shoulder, Dex ducked it, shifting sideways. He ducked the next jab, too, and the next. The third one almost got him; he felt the breeze of the blow along the side of his face. But he didn’t fire back.
“Fucking take a swing, asshole,” Mav grunted.
Dex shook his head. He meant to be purely defensive until the first punch landed. Mav was the one who wanted this fight.
With a roar of frustration, Mav changed tactics and came in on Dex’s body. The first blow that landed was a monster square in Dex’s solar plexus that took all his air at once. As Dex reacted, Mav came in with an uppercut and landed it on the side of Dex’s jaw. The crowd roared.
And with that, the fight was a fight. Still struggling for air, his head spinning, he returned with a combination and bloodied Mav’s nose. The crowd roared again. They danced around the ring for a few seconds, catching their breath and clearing their heads, and then Mav dived at Dex, grabbing him around the waist, trying to take him down to the mat.
Mav was a boxer first and foremost; he was okay on the ground but he rarely went there willingly. Dex preferred to stay on his feet, too, so he set his legs now and let Mav push him to the ropes. He dropped an elbow onto Mav’s back, and another, and another, until he had to focus on rejecting the takedown.
Keeping his stance wide, shifting his feet, he managed to turn Mav around and put his own back to the center of the ring. Then he twisted and broke Mav’s hold. Trotting backward, out of Mav’s reach, he took a second to resettle his sweats on his hips before he gave everybody a lot more show than anyone had signed up for.
Mav charged again, going for the takedown again. It was pretty clear that what Mav wanted was a ground and pound. He wasn’t trying to win a fight; all he wanted was to beat the hell out of Dex.
