The Unstoppable Tony Winters

by P. S. Power

  The Unstoppable Tony Winters

  P.S. Power

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Copyright 2016

  Chapter one

  Tony felt his left fist move before he realized it was happening. It was just a jab and his left hand was wrapped up well to protect it. That part, why boxers wore gloves, had surprised him when he’d first heard it. It wasn’t to protect their opponent. The heavy gloves were used for two, very different things. The first one was to protect the boxer’s hands.

  A lot of what they did for training and even how they lived, was about that kind of thing. Even stupid things had to be thought about. For instance, the gym had a guy the day before that had gotten mad and punched a wall. He was an amateur, not that big and had still broken through the drywall and snapped the stud behind it. At the same time he’d destroyed his hand enough that his next fight, something like two months away, was cancelled. Most of the people there knew better than that, since they trained to hit as hard as they did.

  Without a healthy fist, a boxer wasn’t going to fight.

  The other reason they wore gloves for training, heavy ones that weighed more than what they’d be using in a real match, was for conditioning. After a few rounds of being punched and doing it back, it got hard to hold a hand up. So much so that most boxers kind of left their heads unguarded by the later rounds of a fight.

  Currently though, that wasn’t the issue. His hand had moved without him meaning to do it. Several blows came out after it, driving the other fighter, his friend Steve, back a few steps. The other man rallied and came back at him almost instantly, but was shaking his head a bit. Like he was stunned. Which probably wasn’t the actual case, at the moment. After all, Tony wasn’t a professional fighter and Steve was, so that probably meant the whole thing was a trick. That or more hazing.

  It had shocked him when a few days before Denny, another of the fighters and the man that most often worked with Tony for his own training needs, had mentioned how everyone had been pushing him on purpose. Not because they wanted him to do well. No, just to see if he’d break down at any point. Hazing, basically.

  Normally the new guy was run really hard the first day, until they got sick or nearly so, but Anthony hadn’t broken that way, so they’d all been taking turns, coming up with crazier things to do to him, pretending it was normal training.

  While he could have gotten mad about it, Tony had just shrugged it off at the time. After all, for him, all the fighting and training had been to help out other people. To push them to get better, not the other way around. That being the case, his going twenty-four rounds with Steve one day and then Denny the next, had been to help them get ready for their big fights. Both men had agreed that it would probably help when the time came.

  Right now though, Steve just blinked at him, smiled and came forward like it was a real fight. In this case, the one that Lopez was training for against Clyde Sumner. The other man was known for having fast hands and was good, but a bit feather-fisted. That just meant that, for whatever reason, he didn’t tend to win by knockouts. The man still won. Making him a real opponent that needed to be taken seriously.

  The blows that came then were nearly as quick as what Tony had been throwing and where blocked behind a two fisted cover, as he danced back and then lunged in to strike again, without actually planning to. The moves were exactly what he’d seen on the video and practiced the night before, but there was a strange, almost automatic quality to it all at the moment.

  Even as the first round ended, Tony tried to keep up his Clyde act. He walked to the corner and faced it first, standing there, looking away. It felt strange, but it really was what would be happening. When the bell rang again, which was real, since that made for better training, Tony moved to the center of the ring and came out fighting like he hated Steve and wanted him to know it.

  Thankfully they had headgear and groin protectors on. Mainly because at least one of his buddies punches actually went too low. It didn’t really hurt, but Rick called out from the sidelines.

  “Watch that Steve. Stick to the game plan.” That got a grunt, but no verbal response.

  The fight went on like that. Steve didn’t go below the belt, but did ramp up what he was doing, clearly pushing to try harder. Tony had to do the same thing. Even if the gloves were getting really heavy about then. Sumner was fast and unlike a lot of boxers, he was known for staying that way at the end of even ten rounds. The man wasn’t sloppy either. As far as the fights that Anthony had watched over the last few days, he never let that happen. Which meant that his stance had to remain perfect, all the time and that he had to stay in motion, without stopping.

  Except when he went to stand in the corner, not sitting to rest between rounds.

  Staring at nothing, while the sweat was mopped off of him.

  At round seven, a minute in or so, things really changed. It wasn’t done on purpose, but his hands just snapped out. Almost on their own. Pulling a pattern that was so standard for Clyde that he’d been using it at least once every minute or two, so far. The thing was that this time it caught Steve perfectly, an angled uppercut hitting the headgear just right to knock the man down to the canvas.

  Not that he was out or anything. The problem was after that, when he stood up and charged into the fight again. He was nearly wild, clearly angry over something. Tony didn’t back off, just doing what Sumner would do, which was capitalize on the other man losing his cool, battering him with fast shots that kept landing as he tried to brawl.

  “No! Steve, the plan! Get on the plan!” Rick sounded upset as well and gasped, annoyed, when Steve rushed back in, only to hit the floor again.

  Not hurt, but clearly acting like an idiot.

  In fact, he yelled then and hit the ground on either side of him.

  “Freaking hell!”

  Then he climbed to his feet and started toward Tony again, moving in a more controlled fashion this time. After that things went back to how they started, with the man growling at the end of the last round. Only ten that day.

  Steve shook his head and actually huffed, through his nose.

  “Damn-it! My sparring partner isn’t supposed to kick my ass. Not this easily!”

  It hadn’t really been that of course. As far as Anthony could tell, they’d pretty much tied up, except for when Steve lost it a bit in the seventh round. That could be fixed instantly, with a few words. They still had months to work out the best plan for the real fight, after all.

  Part of Tony, the act that Anthony put forward for everyone there, wanted him to feel bad. Anthony actually stopped that from happening. Not to save his own ego or put the other man down. It wasn’t about that at the moment. It was, truly, about the coming fight and helping Steve be ready.

  Rick though, instead of seeming upset, actually laughed a bit and pounded Steve on the back.

  “No. This is perfect. That… Tony, can you be ready to do that again in three days?” That was addressed to him and wasn’t just a throw away question. After all, Steve had come at him hard enough that it had been close to being a real fight. He hadn’t taken a lot of blows to the head, but there was a limit to how much abuse a body could take in a short time period.

  Still, his friend might actually need him.

  “Yes. That should work. After that I’m going to Leverage for a few days?” Anthony wasn’t really clear on that part.

  That he was going to spar with a lady named Sally, who had a fight with a man from Peru then, was about it. Not where the place was, or what to expect there. That part didn’t really matter however. He’d been practicing the things he needed to fake for the lady, which also meant working out some basic traditional wrestling from a book that the
library had to special order for him to read. It wasn’t hard really, but it was the heart of what Diego Vidal would be doing. Western boxing and that kind of standing grappling. If he had a ground game at all, it had never come up in any fight the man had ever had.

  The most likely thing for the man to have picked up for the fight would be a bit of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. To that end, Tony had been going to classes at the gym each evening, in order to learn that himself. Chase, the man that ran the lessons, told him that he was doing all right anyway. Hopefully it would be enough to let him push Sally in the right way. That part was guesswork. Based on what was most likely for her to have to encounter, fighting the guy.

  Honestly, Anthony got that Diego would probably go into the cage for the fight, swing a few times and then lie down on the mat, letting the girl win. In wasn’t a sanctioned match, but from the sound of it, the thing might be a big deal, since it was going to be televised. Not Pay-Per-View, but it was wacky enough that people would want to see it anyway.

  His uncle smiled at him and winked, as Steve took several deep breaths.

  “Dan called to make sure you still planned to come. We’ll leave on Wednesday morning for that. They’re putting us up at the facility there. I told him that would be all right and that you weren’t insisting on the Ritz-Carlton or anything.”

  Denny came into the ring, his face serious and padded Anthony on his pale, thin and rather sweaty bare back. They’d used gear, but not shirts, trying to keep things as real as possible for the training session.

  “Worse things to do, I hear. That’s a decent place, really. I trained there, a few years ago. Tell everyone I said hello?”

  Smiling, his gum guard still in, Anthony nodded.

  “Sure thing.”

  It took a bit to get all the gear off and they did that outside the ring. Mainly so that Steve wouldn’t attack him for real. It was mainly frustration at how the session had gone, but wasn’t like his normal, fairly gentle, self. Not at all, to be truthful on the matter. Denny was watching the other man carefully, just in case he tried to rush someone. Not just Tony either.

  Instead he drank half a sports bottle of water and shook his head while Rick got things off of him.

  “This is why no one here likes you, Tony. You know that, right?”

  Anthony had grown up in a place that was a lot rougher than a fairly friendly gym and could tell when he was being attacked. This wasn’t actually it. Rick winced, like something real might start, but Steve had sounded fake annoyed, not like he was going for a battle with the fifteen-year-old kid.

  “Really? I thought the realistic sparring was what people liked. Isn’t it the running they hate?”

  Instead of laughing at him, or the words, Steve shook his head.

  “No, amigo. It isn’t either of those. It’s that you’re so good at it. I can claim that I wasn’t going full out, maybe, or that I’m having an off day, but the truth is, I just stepped into the ring with Clyde Sumner and nearly got my behind paddled. The only difference is that I won’t have ten pounds on him.”

  Those words got a nod from Denny and a smile from Rick.

  “Which is why, in two months and a few weeks, you’re going to blast poor Clyde out of the ring. I feel sorry for him, to tell the truth. Just a little. I mean, short of paying the man to tell us all his secrets, we can’t do a lot better than this. As it is, Tony, you need to bring a bit more next time, or Steve will probably knock you out.” That part sounded serious and he got the idea.

  Steve Lopez was going to adapt and change to beat what he’d shown that day. So what he needed to do was come in stronger, faster and more skilled, somehow. Basically what Clyde would do if he were really being pressed in the ring. That meant more research was needed. He hadn’t been looking for those parts of things in particular. At the moment however, his head felt funny.

  Not like he’d been hit to many times either. Shaking it, he tried to work out what was going on. After a while, the tape finally off his hands, he shrugged and looked at Denny.

  “I know this will sound weird, but I think that Sumner has mental problems. He’s locked on in a fight, but his mind kind of goes… Away. That’s why he stands like that when the bell rings each time.”

  The words got Denny to just stare at him, checking his pupils to make sure he wasn’t concussed. Then he nodded a bit.

  “I can see it. You really try to get into their heads, don’t you? The people that you try to spar like?”

  He really did, but Denny waved for him to follow along behind him, since it was nearly time for him to shower up and get over to the nightly BJJ class. He’d only gone for a week so far, but was actually learning a lot about grappling. A lot of the moves were familiar, but sometimes, every other day, they wore martial arts gear. Gi. Mainly because Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu came originally from judo, which was jacketed wrestling from Japan.

  Tony had looked it up, along with a million other things, so that he could understand what everyone was saying all the time.

  The regular practice was fun and relaxed for him. The people worked hard enough, but it wasn’t until he got to work with the instructor that he felt really pushed most of the time. The man was good at what he did, after all. If he wasn’t Rick wouldn’t have hired him to teach there. Not at a club that worked on fighting like they had.

  That day he ended up working with a heavy-set woman who tried pretty hard and wore a purple belt. She wasn’t fat really, but wasn’t a professional fighter either. After the first minute he caught her her in an arm bar, which got her to tap and then, a moment later swept her off of him and worked his way around for a rear choke hold.

  Using the gi he was able to try a variation, a cross hand choke from the rear. That was let go of quickly enough, since it was about practicing the moves, not hurting anyone. After that she managed to catch him twice in a row, once in an ankle lock that got him to smile. After he tapped out.

  “Can you show me how to do that?” It had seemed complex, but the lady, Toni, was actually decent at teaching and had him doing that and several other new things before the end of their session together. That wasn’t long and he got to switch to an older man after that, who had a black belt.

  Gary.

  That was interesting. The man was about fifty, had gray hair and was fit. That was in a more casual way than most of the pro fighters, but better than a lot of the amateurs, which was impressive really. It was harder to get submissions on him, as well as stay out of them, but they worked hard until the next bit. It was unusual, since they’d worked together before, without that happening.

  Then he got another purple belt. The man was about thirty, tough and not anyone that Anthony had seen so far. He helped teach some new moves too. The trick would be to practice them enough that he had them the next day still. It meant doing it in his head, of course. Anything else would take too much energy.

  At the end he got to go with Chase for the last bit. It was a bit like the boxing session with Steve earlier. Without anyone losing their cool. Full force moves, with resistance to everything being done. That was the best part of working with the man, to Anthony. He didn’t have to hold back too much and could try out new things. Most of them didn’t work the first time, but going over them and getting tips, he managed everything by the end.

  The man stood up and walked away without saying anything. That was a bit strange, but several of the others were looking at the instructor, who nodded a few times, went to the workout bag at the front of the room and dug inside it for a few seconds.

  When he came back, he was holding a new belt. A blue one.

  “Here you go. You can defend this. Great work.”

  A few of the people nodded about it, but most just smiled and went back to work.

  Anthony put the thing on and kept going himself. It was nice, but a belt wasn’t the important thing there. No, learning enough to make certain that he could help Sally, if it was needed, was the real point. That meant doubling his efforts.

/>   At the end of the class, there was a little ceremony, where everyone that had a blue belt or higher got to throw him to the mat. Most of them were fairly gentle about it, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. Really, no one made that big of an issue of the whole thing until he got home that night.

  They were having dinner there, even if it was late. During the lesson he’d been running to clean up after the Cardio-Boxing class when they got a few minutes to have water or go to the restroom. The big difference was that, when he walked in, they had company.

  Just people from the gym. Ones that he liked, which was nice. Not that he hated anyone. Tony wouldn’t put up with that. Still, some people were kinder than others.

  Sitting at the table, sipping glasses of water, were Raul, Denny, Ashley and Nick, along with Rick and Jen. There was food on the table, but it was kind of clear that they’d been waiting for him. Setting his bag down, the new belt, along with the white one, showed through the top of the thing.

  It was Raul that noticed it, his face going strange for a moment. Then he nodded, very slowly.

  “Ah. I can see that, perhaps. Interesting, Tony. You have won a belt already? Not all do that, in their first week. Especially since you’re too young. You’re supposed to be sixteen to have one of those. Still, who could doubt that you deserve it? I shall have to check, of course, in the morning?” The words were laid back and almost bland. Raul normally brought a lot of energy to the whole process of life though, so it sounded strange for him to be saying something like that.

  It was a belt after all and not something that he’d steal. Inside he felt a bit of anger rising over the accusation, but then shook his head. Tony wouldn’t do that. No, he’d simply find out what was going on and if something needed to be shown, do so.

  “Chase gave it to me. Am I supposed to pay for it?” The words were a bit short sounding for him, at least as far as these people had ever seen. Anthony lived trying to be helpful and kind, after all. Now, suddenly, he probably seemed ready to hit the man. At least that was how almost everyone was acting. They all sat up straighter, seeming tense.