HARD ROAD (FIGHT CARD)

by Jack Tunney

  The bell rang and the referee barked, “Mix it up.”

  In the seconds it took me to cross the ring, I threw away everything I had worked on and decided to go right at Michael Boyle instead.

  We met in the center of the ring. Boyle came out firing with both fists. I dodged a left and a right, then sidestepped an overhand right and tried to circle around him. I shot two jabs at his nose and a chopping right hand, but he picked off each punch. He feinted with a right and delivered a solid left high on my head, backing me up a step.

  When he connected with that punch, it got my attention fast. If there were any jitters or nervousness left, it all disappeared when the leather hit skin. The blow brought some cheers from the crowd.

  I took a step back and tried to put a little space and distance between us, but Boyle charged in. I used straight jabs to keep him away, but he kept coming forward. He blocked my lefts, so I shot a couple of rights to his arms then tried jamming an uppercut between his gloves. I caught his chin, but the punch glanced away harmlessly.

  He was pressing me, but I wasn’t giving an inch. Boyle hammered punches into my arms. The blows stung – he hit harder than I remembered – and the past seven years had allowed him to develop some heavy punches. It felt like he was hitting me with sledgehammers.

  We went at it, trading lefts and rights – toe to toe in the center of the ring.

  “That’s all you got?” Boyle snarled. “Gonna take more than that to beat me.”

  With about a minute to go, I got sloppy and Boyle hit me on the chin with a solid left. It was a knockout punch. A little harder and it would have been all over. I had one of those Looney Tunes moments. If I had closed my eyes, I would have seen the little cartoon birds circling around my head.

  I back peddled and tried getting away, but he moved in like a shark smelling blood. He rained lefts and rights down on me. I covered up and protected my face behind my gloves, but he fired a hard right that ripped between my gloves and tagged me on the chin again.

  The bell rang. “Told you,” he said. “You’re in over your head.”

  I made my way back to the corner, trying to clear my head.

  “What are you doing?” Frankie screamed.

  I slumped down on my stool. “He expects me to dance away from him,” I said. “He doesn’t expect me to come at him.”

  “You’re walking right into everything he’s got!” Frankie exclaimed.

  I just shook my head. Frankie went on about what I was doing wrong, but it didn’t matter. I told myself I could take anything he could dish out.

  ROUND EIGHTEEN

  In the second round, I came out of my corner like a rocket. I landed three jabs, a long right, then a straight left to his chest. Boyle was always a good counter puncher, but he was better than I remembered. Being in the ring with contenders and ranked fighters had sharpened his skills. Made him more dangerous.

  He came back at me with two jabs and a hard right, then banged a left into my shoulder. I shook it off and moved left, firing my own jabs at his head before pumping a right to his ribs.

  I felt comfortable and confident. He hadn’t shown me anything yet that I wasn’t prepared for – there were no surprises.

  Boyle moved in with his head down and his gloves up. I blocked a right then buried a hard left to his gut that backed him up a step. I went after him, cutting off the ring when he tried to slide away and snapped my jab in his face. We traded punches for a minute, each of us throwing lefts and rights while trying to block what the other guy was throwing. We finally wound up against the ropes where Boyle grabbed my arms and pulled me into a clinch. Before I could catch my breath, he slammed his forehead into my eye.

  I felt the skin rip open and blood stream down my face.

  I looked to the referee, but he didn’t say anything. He stepped between us to break us apart and Michael Boyle sneered at me. I touched a glove to my eye and it came away bloody.

  The same old Michael Boyle from that first fight. It felt like one of those moments from seven years ago as the blood poured out of the cut and dripped on the canvas.

  I pushed forward before he could move away and pumped a left-right-left combo into his gut, sucking the wind out of his sails, then a right to the body that made him wince. He leaned backwards against the ropes and I kept after him, charging forward with lefts and rights. I kept firing at him even after the bell rang, and the referee had to pull us apart.

  “You’re bleeding. Just like the last time,” Boyle said. “Maybe you want to call the Red Cross.”

  “Fight’s not over yet,” I said.

  “Ain’t no different than the last time,” he said.

  When I got back to the corner Frankie jammed two fingers worth of Vaseline into the cut and pressed an ice bag against the skin.

  “Got me with a head butt,” I said. “Didn’t see it coming.”

  Frankie planted himself squarely in front of my stool and jabbed a finger in my chest. “What did you expect?” he yelled. “Might as well paint a big bull’s eye on your face.”

  “You said not to give him anything to hit,” I said as the other corner man wiped blood off my cheek. “Figured he couldn’t hit me if I was busy hitting him.”

  “That ain’t working out so well, is it?” he said. “Maybe you want to rethink that strategy?”

  Ray Gold was alongside the ring and he stuck his head between the ropes, getting his face close to mine. “Don’t let him take control of this fight,” he said. “Use your speed. Make him work.”

  The third round began the same way the first two, with each of us charging forward and exchanging blows. The crowd had been quiet, but they started to come alive in the second as the action picked up. This was turning into a real fight and they could see it.

  Boyle’s plan was simple. He wanted to attack and hit hard – I figured going after him right away would throw him off, but he hadn’t slowed a step. I stayed low and jabbed as he came in, straightening him with a left to the nose. He hooked to the head then followed with a hard, vicious left to my ribs.

  When the punch landed, I felt my insides explode.

  I wasn’t sure, but it felt like something had broken.

  I tried to crouch lower to protect the ribs. Boyle picked up on the movement. He tried two decoy rights then hit me with a sledgehammer that landed flush on my ear. The punch came out of nowhere. It was short, hard, and on the mark.

  He knocked me on my butt before I even knew what had happened.

  The Big Room erupted as I went down. People jumped to their feet. The ref moved Michael Boyle quickly to a neutral corner then started the ten count as I got to my feet.

  I heard the voices all around me. There was Frankie and Gold telling me what to do and people in the stands cheering Boyle on to victory. All the guys who had bet on him to win by a knockout were feeling confident about their choice as I staggered to the ropes. Even though I stood up as fast as I could, it wasn’t quick enough to escape every photographer at ringside. Flash bulbs popped and cameras snapped. There was no escaping what had just happened, and if I could ever put it behind me I knew those pictures would follow me for the rest of my life.

  I wasn’t hurt but I never felt so alone in the ring.

  Boyle came forward with his head down. Moving in for the kill. He saw his chance and that made him confident. Cocky. And sloppy.

  He dropped his hands and started swinging big, looping blows from his waist, looking for the knockout. I ducked under the punches and popped two quick lefts to his face, a fast right on his head, and a left-right combo to his midsection when he tried to hide behind his gloves. I pressed the attack and kept after him instead of retreating.

  Boyle tried moving sideways, but I cut him off and bullied my way inside. He was still thinking: knockout. Still hearing the referee calling his name and raising his arm. He hadn’t moved past the image of me on the canvas. Hadn’t remembered there was still a minute left in the round.

  He kept trying roundhouse pu
nches I could see coming from a mile away. His hands were low and that chin of his was out there – a big, huge target waiting to be hit. I threw my own nasty three punch combination: a body shot followed by a short right to the head and a left uppercut to the chin. The punches stood him straight up and when he pulled his gloves towards his face, I buried another right to the ribs.

  When he dropped his hands again, I came back with an overhand right that landed squarely on his chin. Before his expression could change from confidence to confusion he was on his back just like I had been.

  Michael Boyle rolled over to his belly, then slowly lifted himself off the canvas as the bell rang. The crowd went wild.

  I looked at Michael Boyle struggling to stand. “Don’t have much to say now, do you?”

  They splashed water in my face when I got back to the corner and Frankie smacked me hard on the cheek like he was trying to knock some sense in me.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he cried. “You’re gonna throw it all away.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” I said. “I told you I can take what this guy’s got. I can beat him!”

  “Not if he knocks you out.”

  Frankie smeared more Vaseline in the cut and pressed the ice bag harder against my eye. He had so much more he wanted to say, but when he opened his mouth to speak nothing came out.

  Across the ring, Boyle sat on his stool with his chin on his chest while his corner men poured water down his back and his trainer yelled in his ear. Tommy Domino watched silently, but his confident expression had soured.

  I wondered if Boyle was re-thinking that comment about not needing any luck.

  ROUND NINETEEN

  The middle rounds of any fight were the ones that separated the men from the boys. And the contenders from the pretenders. The first and last rounds always got the most attention, but anyone who’d ever gone the distance knew fights were won in the middle rounds. In a ten round bout, the fourth through seventh rounds were the ones where you took the fight to the other guy and hoped he didn’t land the kind of shots that would end your night before you ended his.

  It went the same way in this fight.

  For the next four rounds the action went back and forth as Boyle and I traded punches. After that knockdown in the third, I knew I was behind on the judges’ scorecards, even after I had put him on the canvas in the same round. I wanted to take control of the fight, but Boyle wanted the same thing and that made it tough to do what I wanted to do.

  I had to give him credit because the guy didn’t back down. There was no quit in him. He kept coming forward, no matter what I hit him with. I used every punch in my bag, from rights to the head to straight lefts to hard hooks on the arms. I landed shots to his body that were supposed to slow him down the longer the fight went on and take the strength out of his legs.

  Boyle kept going after my eye, banging his fists into the cut and trying to make it worse. Between rounds my corner kept working on the cut, but after one or two shots from Boyle, my face was again streaked with blood.

  “Still think you got it made in the shade?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer him. I just kept going after him and matching him punch for punch.

  It was an entertaining fight for everybody in the house – nonstop action at a fast and furious pace.

  Boyle landed heavy shots to my body and, with each blow, I felt the pain ripping through me. A couple of my ribs were broken. Boyle knew it and I knew it, but I wasn’t going to back away or give an inch. He knew I was coming off the fight against Big Jake two weeks earlier and figured he could wear me down until I had nothing left.

  And we both knew the fighter who controlled the last rounds was going to be the one who got the win.

  It was just as much about brains as it was about punches and power.

  In the sixth, I came out of my corner and went after him. I hooked off his jabs and popped in a few of my own, then did a stick and move around the ring that had him chasing me.

  I slipped inside and hammered his breadbasket then came back with a left uppercut that was right on the button. I thought it was my moment. My chance. It was a solid shot that would have knocked down almost any other fighter, but Boyle covered up and I couldn’t make a dent in his defense. I came inside again and kept pressuring him – little by little I could see him slowing down as the round went on.

  For almost a minute, we went at it toe to toe, trading punches, ducking and dodging each others’ blows. We were giving the crowd a real barnburner and they stayed on their feet, cheering us on with every punch we threw. Every time he pounded me with one of those body shots, it lit me up like a Chicago house fire, but I kept swinging and tried to pretend it didn’t hurt.

  I slid around him and banged a hard right-left combo into his neck. He came back with his own combination, but his right hand was high and wide and I landed two lefts to the body before hitting him with another right to his head.

  I could hear the crowd. I imagined Sinatra and Martin and maybe even Sammy Davis cheering me on. Thought about how cool it would be if Elvis, or somebody like him, showed up. I wondered if Ginny was watching and what she was thinking. I ripped two rights and a left to the head, a short hook to the body, then came in with a straight right to the chin that turned Boyle’s head.

  Boyle came back with his own jabs, but I used another left-right combo to take away some of his power, then he tied me up in a clinch. The referee came between us but before I could take a step back, Boyle hit me with a sneaky punch on the break. I had dropped my guard just enough that he snaked in a left that landed squarely on my eye. I flinched and dropped my hands. It was the opening he needed to bury another right in my ribs.

  It felt like somebody had emptied a thirty-eight in my gut.

  I didn’t ever remember feeling that kind of pain.

  Boyle came in, firing heavy punches, and all I could do was cover up to protect myself against everything he threw at me. Rights and lefts and wild haymakers from all directions. But at the end of the round, I had taken everything he had thrown at me and I was still standing.

  I didn’t go down.

  Frankie jammed smelling salts under my nose when I got back to the corner. I gagged and choked, and my eyes teared up like waterfalls.

  “It’s my ribs that got hurt,” I spit out. “My head’s fine.”

  He shook his head. “You need to wake up out there,” he exclaimed. “Maybe this’ll help.”

  Ray Gold stuck his face between the ropes. The cigar was inches from my nose and I felt a wave of nausea churn through my gut.

  “Got the fight even so far,” he barked. “It can go either way. You got three rounds to close this thing out.”

  I nodded and caught my breath.

  Across the ring, Michael Boyle sat slumped on his stool. His expression hadn’t changed much since the first round, but he looked softer now. His shoulders sagged a little and his head dropped forward. His face was drawn and tired. He was breathing hard from his mouth and it looked like his corner men were worried. One of the guys rubbed his shoulders and the other kept the ice bag against the back of his neck. Boyle had put everything he had into those punches - and it had cost him.

  I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I wondered if he still had the desire that had been there when the fight started, or if he was feeling doubt - starting to think about giving up. Some times, the will to fight drains out of you – when you bite off more than you can chew, it has a way of slowing you down.

  I still had fire burning in my belly.

  I was hoping his had started to go cold.

  By the time he came out of his corner in the eighth, Boyle was moving slower. I pressed him with my jab, sticking and moving whenever he got close. I backed him up with three rights to the head then moved inside with two more hooks to the midsection.

  I stepped away from a hard right that just missed, but he followed with more body shots. I tried to block his punches and ignore how much they hurt. The pain was killin
g me. A part of everything I did. Boyle moved closer, but I came in with a right hand behind my jabs – the punch shook him and brought the crowd roaring back to their feet. Boyle took another right then landed a roundhouse punch to my face. Blood from my cut sprayed everywhere, but I shook off the blow.

  I caught him on the jaw with a right and followed with a four punch combo that had him covering up by the time I finished. I ripped two lefts between his gloves and slammed a right to the body. At the bell, I hit him with a straight right that snapped his head back.

  Between rounds, I again sneaked a look across the ring and saw Tommy Domino leaning between the ropes again, looking at Boyle. There was something about his expression, but I couldn’t put my finger on what I saw. It was concern, but something else was there – a look that said, despite the way the fight was going, he knew something nobody else did.

  R OUND TWENTY

  The ninth round went the same way as the eighth. I kept after Boyle, stalking him around the ring and cutting it down to size so he had no place to hide. When we got close he tried to use his head as a weapon, but I tagged him with a straight right to the chin then a left to the kidneys. For the first time, I saw a look of pain in his expression. I hammered another left in that same spot and all he could do was grab my arms and pull me close until the referee broke us apart.

  I snapped a left to Boyle’s nose. A three punch combo to the side of his head had him bleeding from the nose and mouth. He tried yanking me close again, but I nailed him with an uppercut that got him moving backwards. I missed with a left, but connected with another shot to the kidneys. I followed with a right to the midsection then a hard uppercut that landed flush on his chin.

  At the bell, he was lurching backwards, swinging wildly with both hands, but missing badly. He didn’t look like a contender anymore.