“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” - Mike Tyson

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With his right eye blind from the swelling and blood dripping into his left, Jay squinted at the blurry outline of his coach screaming at him.

His motivating words could’ve helped Jay, if he understood them. The infinite bells ringing within Jay's ears stifled all noise. The referee walked over to the red corner and held four fingers up. Jay felt two taps on the back of his neck.

“Two.” he said, trusting his second’s eyesight far more than his own. The referee lingered and Jay looked at him with concern.

“You’re on thin ice Leonard.”

Jay nodded, looking up to the jumbotron above the ring.

Fuck! That’s what I look like?

Jay's normally neat black hair drooped over his eyes, soaked in sweat. He wasn’t the prettiest before the fight, but the broken nose he'd just earned hadn’t done him any more favours.

The bell rang. The lactic acid in Jay's thighs begged him not to stand up. He didn’t have a choice.

Jay stumbled into the ring and pressed his red gloves into his cheekbones. The ringing hadn’t left his ears, but Jay heard something deeper beneath it. The roar of the crowd.

LIGHTNING! LIGHTNING!

The rumble of thousands of people chanting as one buoyed Jay forward as his body begged him for a few more precious seconds of rest. Belt or not, he was these people’s champion.

And he’d give them a fight.

Jay’s opponent, Richard Boogieman Burns, somehow looked worse than he did. Hunched over, panting, and sporting an inch long gash above his right eyebrow. Yet both fighters made the weary march to the centre of the ring.

As the referee signalled the start of the penultimate round, Jay held out his glove to acknowledge the opponent he’d shared the last 30 minutes of war with.

He wanted a fist bump. He got a jab to the face.

Should’ve expected that.

Jay replied with a lightning-fast trio of lefts, steeling himself for another round of hell. His opponent could secure a decision victory with this round. If Jay won the eleventh, then he’d force Burns to come out swinging in the twelfth. Leaving him ripe for a counter.

Easier said than do-

Bright blue flashed into Jay's vision. A looping left hook, hidden behind his swollen eye, smashed into his jaw.

One knee dropped to the ground and Jay looked up to see his opponent celebrating, facing the crowd already.

Disgusting. How dare he.

Ignoring the world spinning around him, Jay instantly returned to his feet. A spike of dizziness pierced his skull and Jay felt his jaw click as he bit down on his gumshield.

One more of those and I’m out.

Boogieman Burns had clawed his way up to the World Boxing Council (W.B.C.) #6 ranking using low blows, cheap shots, and everything else they don’t teach you in Boxing 101. For the past month he hadn’t shut up about how he'd take Jay's #2 contender spot with ease. How it was his destiny to become the champ.

Bullshit.

Boxers like Burns were everything wrong with boxing in the modern era. More interested in the belts, bright lights, and stardom than the sweet science. What happened to the real fighters?

Since his pro debut over five years ago, Jay’s every day had been dedicated to boxing. How to punch faster, harder, more unexpectedly. More effective ways to train, better strategies.

If it made you a better fighter, Jay had thought of it, tried it, and added it to his regime already.

His opponent was a part of the new breed of fighter. A wannabe Mayweather or McGregor. Sure, he could fight, but he made his money with his mouth not his fists. Jay didn’t mind a bit of trash talk, but the whole circus had become too much for him. Empty words until they finally stepped into the ring.

Boogieman Burns, and everyone like him, spoke about raising the fight game to new levels. In reality, they were knocking down the foundations of the sport. It wasn’t enough to be a fighter anymore. The modern boxer had to be marketable, business oriented, flashy, and so much more.

All Jay wanted, more than anything in the world, was to be the heavyweight world champion. It was his father’s dream before him, and his brother's dream after that. Now their fates rested on Jay's shoulders.

His opponent just wanted the fame, a paycheck, and probably to retire before forty with minimal brain damage.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t fight.

If Jay was blessed with Burns’ natural ability, he’d have become champ years ago. Jay had speed; he was probably the fastest heavyweight in the world. But he didn’t have the knockout power the rest of the division had. Other heavyweights had the crutch of power to lean on, they were all capable of pulling a knockout out of nowhere. To fight against those monsters, Jay had to rely on his speed.

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Speed of body, speed of mind. He didn’t just need to punch faster, he had to think faster. Had to plan faster. Jay had to be one step ahead of his opponent the whole fight if he wanted to win.

This was the last stepping stone before Jay got his first world title fight. He didn’t just need to win. He needed to show the world he was serious, that he deserved a shot at the belt.

“Duck under the right. He’s leaving his jaw wide open! Come on Lightning, you gotta pull this one outta the fire!” Jay's coach screamed at him from outside the ring. He was right. In the months leading up to this fight, Jay and his long-time coach had spent days poring over each of his opponent’s previous fights. Burns had a weak body and tended to overextend his block to protect it. Every time his opponent threw a right hook all fight, Jay had ducked underneath and attacked the body.

By now, Jay knew Burns’ timing, range, and tendencies like the back of his gloves. The killshot was inevitable, all he had to do was draw Burns’ focus downstairs and meet him up top.

Seven raised fingers in front of him let Jay know breaktime was over. He lifted his gloves and assured the referee that he was ready to fight, practically shoving the man aside before marching back into the fire.

Jay turned to check the clock.

Only two minutes. Fuck.

He hunted his opponent round all four corners of the ring for thirty seconds before the realisation hit him.

Fucking coward.

With that lucky knockdown in the middle of an even round, Burns had got two points over Jay. Securing him the round, and potentially the fight depending on how blind the judges were feeling.

You’ve knocked your opponent down, eleventh round, and you’re not even trying for the knockout? Who the fuck do you think you are and why are you calling yourself a fighter!

“Fucking fight then!” Jay yelled, trying to rile his opponent up but only angering himself further. Burns’ simply grinned, showing off a garish gumshield made to look like a golden grill with the W.B.C. belt on it.

More like World’s Biggest Cunt.

Realising he’d been swept into his opponent’s game, Jay left World’s Biggest Cunt for the post-fight interview. He couldn’t win the fight here, but he could keep setting up the knockout.

For the rest of the round, Jay kept harrying his opponent. Not giving him a moment of rest, and relentlessly targeting his liver. The damage probably wouldn’t pay off, body blows usually had a longer-term effect and they were eleven rounds in, but there was more than one way to damage an opponent.

Body shots dealt damage. They also hurt like hell. If Burns focused too much on Jay's hits to the body, he’d stop thinking about upstairs.

In the boxing ring, the only thing worse than getting punched in the face is getting punched in the face without knowing. When you know you’re gonna be hit, you can prepare. You can tense your neck, you can bite down on your gumshield and get ready to roll with the punch. When you don’t know a punch is coming all you can do is take the hit and hope you don’t wake up horizontal.

The bell rang and Burns punched Jay just after. Early enough for plausible deniability, late enough for everyone to know what he was doing. Everyone except the referee it seemed, as all he did was stare at Jay's opponent for a fraction longer than normal before pointing both fighters to their corners.

“What the absolute fuck was that, Jay?” Jay's coach emptied an entire bottle of ice-cold water into his face. If Boogieman Burns was the epitome of new school boxing, Andre Allen was his opposite. Old, bald, and with a face that had surely kissed more canvases than women, Jay’s coach founded Red Star boxing gym twenty years ago and was as old school as it got. He may not have known about the science and data driving modern boxing techniques, but he knew two things better than anyone in the world.

One, Jay Lightning Leonard. And two, how to coach him.

“You’re getting too sucked up into his game Lightning. You call that a fight? You let that prick bully you for three minutes, knock you down, and clown you at the final bell.” Jay would have responded about looking for a counter, but his coach didn’t give him the time. “And don’t give me that crap about a counter! You know he’s too good for that, stop kidding yourself. Stop thinking about highlights. Stop thinking about the headlines. Start thinking about the fucking fight. What would Jules say if he saw that round? Probably something like who’s that wanker and why’s he fighting the world number six? Now shut up and let the doctor take a look at your eye.”

Jay's older brother Julian was the sole reason Jay started boxing. He was Coach’s fighter before Jay was, the one who’d brought a young Jay to Red Star boxing gym. Jay's big brother was always the more gifted athlete. While Jay needed countless hours analysing and practising before learning a new technique, Julian had the uncanny ability to see something once and mimic it perfectly.

He had all the makings of a future world champion. When Jay first started boxing, all he wanted was to be just like his brother.

But twelve years ago, Julian died. And it wa- NO!

Jay blocked out the thoughts of his brother. He had to focus on the fight in front of him.

Jay didn’t just want this win. He needed it. He needed to be world champion. If Jules couldn’t make it, Jay had to do it for him.

“Because you were fucking useless that round, you’re probably down on the scorecards.” Coach said, gripping Jay by the ears. “You know the plan. You fucking made it. So go out there, duck under his right hook, clock him in the jaw and show the world who the better fighter is! Come on! Fight your fight Lightning, I know you’ve got it in you. Time to fucking prove it!”

Jay bounced up, ready to fight fifteen seconds before the twelfth round started. Coach said he was losing the fight, and Jay had to trust him, but Burns was just as fucked up as he was. 33 minutes in a ring with Jay had taken its toll on Mr. World’s Biggest Cunt. Laborious breaths shifted his whole body as he desperately tried to fill his lungs with oxygen.

Burns locked eyes with Jay. He tried to don the mask of invincibility, but it was too late. Jay knew he was on his last legs. Winning rounds mattered in boxing, but the knockout was the great equaliser. One punch had the power to render thirty-five minutes and fifty seconds of hard work useless, Jay had one last chance to make it happen.

The bell rang and Jay got to work.

Jay thought Burns might try and grind the final round out. Choosing a boring victory over late drama was certainly the safer option, but every boxer has an ego. Nobody becomes a world ranker without the spark of violence whispering in their ear. Jay just had to make Burns listen to it.

To everyone watching, Jay appeared desperate and reckless. Swinging like a madman, throwing looping haymakers instead of clean, straight punches.

They were half right. While Jay was desperate, he was far from reckless. He threw each punch with only his arms, not putting any bodyweight into the punches. The worst thing a boxer could do when trying to hurt someone.

But Jay wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, he was trying to get Burns to bite.

Jay kept throwing until it came. A swinging right hook he could’ve dodged in his sleep. He deftly slipped under it, slid his left leg forward, and wound up the finisher.

His balance was off.

The movement wasn’t right.

Jay wrestled his eyes off Burns’ jaw, twisting his neck back. His right foot was trapped, shackled to the ground beneath his opponent’s boot.

A blue fist came rushing towards his face. He could see it, but there was nothing Jay could do about it.

The roar of the crowd, his coach’s dismay, the murderous intent of his enemy and the pain of defeat all blended into an unforgettable snapshot before his vision instantly shot black.