Her back hit the mat with an echoing slap.
There was a round of whistles and someone shouted, “Nice level change!”
I immediately moved to secure top position, keeping my knees tight and my hips low, before she could scramble. She bridged hard, trying to buck me off. I rode with the motion, sensing her desperation, and then slid into side control.
She tapped soon after, attempting to choke me out but never managing to finish the move.
Behind the fence, Kai roared, “That’s my gi — uh — my Tori!”
Much as I wanted to, I didn't look.
ButGod, I felt his gaze, his presence.
Fight two came faster than I’d anticipated when they shuffled the field around because of an injury. Her name was Marisol, and I’d seen her around in previous tournaments. She was built like a small tank, with broad shoulders and thick legs.
The kind of fighter who preferred pressure over finesse. A wrestler, judging by her low stance and the way she measured distance — patient, calculating.
“Light contact,” the ref said out of habit.
Marisol cracked her neck with a smirk. “Sure.”
We touched gloves, and then she exploded forward.
Her first right-hand blow sliced past my cheek, sloppy but close enough to sting. The shock of it brought my focus into sharp relief. Marisol followed with a tight left hook aimed at my liver, which I didn't manage to block quickly enough.
It wasn’t placed correctly, but the impact still rattled my ribs.
She didn’t give me any space and didn’t allow me to draw breath with her classic wrestler tactics. She crowded the cage, bullied the space and tried to suffocate me.
Her forearms crashed into mine as she drove me backward. The chain-link fence dug into my shoulders as she shot low for a body lock takedown.
As her arms cinched around my waist, she squeezed and tried to drag me down by sheer force. For a heartbeat, she had me but then instinct kicked in.
I lowered my center of gravity, widened my stance and dug in my underhooks, sliding my arms inside hers to break her grip. She adjusted, attempting to lift me, but I hooked my leg around hers and pivoted sharply.
Marisol’s forward momentum betrayed her, and I used it against her with a harai goshi — a sweeping hip throw — sending her flipping over my hip.
She landed flat on her back.
The crowd gasped, then erupted with a roar and above all of it, Kai yelled, “That’s how it’s fucking done! That’s what I’m talking about!”
Heat flared in my cheeks, but I stepped back into stance as Marisol rose, grinning wide and bloodthirsty.
“Okay,” she breathed. “Let’s go.”
She was smarter in the second round, using more balance and less brute force. Testing my guard with sharp jabs, she forced me to defend high before attacking low.
When I sprawled, she switched to uppercuts. I blocked one; the next one slipped through and hit my jaw so hard, I saw stars at the edges of my vision.
The crowd winced as one, but I didn’t back down.
Marisol swung again with a big overhand right, telegraphed but powerful. I stepped inside the arc of her punch, letting it skim past, and countered with a tight elbow cutting across her eyebrow. Blood welled instantly.
We clinched, her sweat slicking against mine. Our breaths collided, ragged, hot, and furious.
She tried to trip me, but I used her leg movement to trap her shin, driving my weight forward in an old-school grappling move called a knee tap takedown. This sent her to the mat again, messier this time.
Marisol scrambled to get up, but I caught her by the back of her neck, my arms around her, my chest against her spine.
