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He steps back. “Begin.”
I think of everything I’ve worked on over the past couple months, and prepare myself to be quick on my feet in case he pulls something like that again. But this time when I hold my hand out, he taps it.
He hops around me, then pivots and goes in the other direction. But I keep my eyes on him, and step in. He’s trying to confuse me and get me to lose my bearings, so he can attack. Little does this fucker know, I’m used to that shit.
I swing my arm out for a left hook, just like he did to me, and catch him on the side of his head as he gets a little too cocky in his footwork.
Like Max said, his impulsiveness could work in my favor.
But that pisses him off, and he immediately barges into me. He lays a body shot to my ribs but I move back quickly and land a low kick to his thigh. And I can tell he feels it.
He looks fucking livid, but I’m about to make him even more angry.
I wait, knowing a kick is coming. And when it does, I grab his leg and take him down to the ground. The thump he makes when he goes down tells me he felt that too, and he quickly tries to sit up. But I move faster, into mount position, punching his head hard with both fists.
His forearms come up to block my hits, and he attempts to bridge his hips to roll us. He is trying to grab one of my arms to center it so he can roll, and once again, his impulsivity is working for me.
If he took a moment to think this through he would know that if he tried to roll us, I could move into back control. Which I do. And as this is an area of weakness for him, he’s late to defend. With me behind him, and my legs wrapped around his waist, I’m able to get my left arm around his neck. And just as I’m about to pull him into a choke, his hand reaches back to punch me, with fingers extended. And his finger goes right into my eye.
“Hey!” The ref yells, dropping down to separate us. “What did I say?”
The ref pushes Hens away from me, who just smirks. “Sorry, unintentional.”
I rub my eye, blinking as I sit up.
“You good?” The ref asks.
I nod, standing. Fucking asshole. He knew I almost had him… and the fact he resorts to illegal moves, like a fucking eye poke, when he’s going to lose is just fucking dirty.
The ref looks over my eye, which is thankfully ok, then turns to Hens. “Last warning. One more, you’re disqualified. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.” He bounces on his feet, staring at me.
The ref steps back and motions once again for us to begin.
There’s under a minute left on the clock for this round, so I shift my focus to just doing as much damage as I can with what we have left. He taps my glove with a slight smirk, and I’m ready to wipe it the fuck off.
As the clock runs out, we stay on our feet, and I manage to get some good strikes on him. And he lands some on me as well.
The ref indicates the end of the round, and I head to my corner. Max immediately enters the cage and comes over to me.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says, running his eyes over my face. “There’s dirty and then there’s Josh Hens.”
I nod, keeping my eyes on Hens in his corner as he stares back at me.
“Hey.”
I bring my eyes to Max’s before me as the cutman applies more petroleum jelly to my swelling face.
“You almost had him,” Max says. “Get him back to the ground. You know he’s weakest when you have back control. He’s not easy to take down, but once you get him there, you got him. And if he wants to get disqualified, that’s on him and you can have the win. And as it stands right now, if it goes to scorecard, you’re on top.”
I nod, blowing out a breath.
“Ok.” He glances behind him to Hens and back to me. “Fucking destroy him.”
I nod again as Max leaves, and the ref calls us into the middle for round two.
“Fight clean, fight fair. Got it?” The ref says, looking between us. But his gaze lingers on Hens.
