Page 81 of Split Decision

He overreaches just enough trying to catch what isn't there, and I'm back on him before he can recover, driving a shot into his body and bringing the next one up high while he's still resetting, the combination landing clean enough to snap his head and force his feet to find new balance instead of the one he expected to close the exchange with.

It doesn't end the fight, but it changes it.

I can feel it immediately in the way he comes back at me—not reckless, not out of control, but no longer dictating in the same way. He's adjusting now, recalibrating, looking to take back something he thought he already had, and that shift is exactly where I need him.

The fourth is where I almost give it back.

I press when I should be holding, feel the opening and reach for it before it's fully there, stepping in half a beat early, and this time his right hand doesn't miss. It lands clean enough to snap everything sideways for a second, light flaring behind my eyes as the reminder comes sharp and immediate: he only needs one.

I reset as soon as my feet hit the canvas again, guard up, breath controlled, forcing the moment to pass without letting it take anything else with it, and when I sit, Mack doesn't need to say much.

Patience. Again.

I nod because I know exactly what I did.

The fifth settles back into something more controlled, more deliberate. I take the center again and make him work for it, give him nothing I didn't choose to give, no angles I didn't set myself. He tries to draw me in the same way I drew him, but I don't take it. I stay just outside of what he wants, step in only when I decide, keep the exchanges short and clean, and every time we break, I can feel the difference between where he wants the fight to be and where it actually is.

By the sixth, everything narrows down to the essentials. The crowd fades into something distant, the lights stop mattering, and it's just him, his breathing, the way his feetmove when he's tired but still dangerous, still looking for that one clean shot that can erase everything else.

I don't give it to him.

I stay inside the rhythm Mack built into me, inside the discipline that keeps me from reaching for something that isn't there, and when the final bell sounds, we're both still standing, but I know before anyone says it. I did what I came here to do.

When they raise my hand, the noise comes rushing back, loud and immediate, but underneath it, there's something quieter settling into place, something that's been waiting for this exact moment to arrive.

Mack is through the ropes before the announcement finishes, and he doesn't say anything when he reaches me. He just puts his hand on the back of my head, solid and certain, and that's enough.

ANDI

The fight venue's backstage is exactly what backstage always is—organized chaos with a distinctive smell, all industrial and electricity and whatever catering is running. Travis gets us through without difficulty. He has the kind of name that opens doors at the service entrance,and nobody asks questions when the answer is standing in front of them.

We find a spot in the wings with a clear line of sight to the ring. Far enough back that we're not visible from the floor.

I watch him walk out.

That's the first moment. Not seeing him—I see him constantly on screens, in coverage, in the photos Syndi posts. Watching him walk out. The way he moves. The way the crowd responds before he's even fully in the ring—the recognition of someone who has earned the room's attention. I've seen him in the gym, I've seen him in my kitchen, I've seen every version of him I've had access to. But this version—Luke Woods walking toward something he's built his whole life toward—I've only seen this version twice. And each time it resets something in me. Reminds me what's underneath the rest of it.

I watch the fight.

Not the way the crowd watches it—not for the spectacle of it, not waiting for something to happen. I watch it the way Mack taught me to watch everything: for the information underneath the action. The shoulder that loads before the right hand. The footwork that telegraphs direction. The specific moment when a fighter stops reacting and starts choosing.

Luke is choosing.

By the second round, I can see it. He's feeding Soto a picture that isn't quite accurate, giving him enough to build a read, then using that read against him. Patient, deliberate, exactly what Mack would have prescribed for this opponent. I spotted Soto's right hand tell on film three months ago when Luke described it to me on the phone, and I asked the right questions, the same way I've asked questions about fighters since I was sixteen years old, standing ringside at Tough Enough.

It's there in the second round, just like he said.

By the time the third round turns, I already know why.

He's good.

He's so good.

By the time the final bell rings, I've forgotten completely why I came here as anything other than someone who loves the man in that ring.

Then I remember.

Travis finds me after, and we make our way through the crowd toward the corridor that leads to the dressing rooms. The plan—if it can be called a plan—is to wait until the media clears and see if he comes out. I haven't decided whether to knock. I haven't decided anything past being in the building.