I tapped his gloves and walked back to my corner without one word. He could have the talking. My hands were gonna do everything I needed to say tonight.
Finally, the bell rang.
He came out the first round patient and technical the way I expected him to. Long jab keeping me at distance, moving all over the damn ring, not committing to anything big yet. He was studying me, figuring out how I reacted, what my habits were, where my holes were. This nigga fought smart and I respected it even while I was figuring out how to take it apart.
I ate two of his jabs on purpose just to feel his power up close. People had been talking about his hands for years and I needed to know what was real.
It was real. No question.
But I was still standing after his hits and my legs were solid. That told me everything I needed to know.
I stopped trying to match his technique because that was never gonna be my game. I cut the distance hard and got inside where his jab lost its steam and I went to his body immediately. Short, mean, ugly punches with no style to them at all. Just digging into his ribs every time we got close enough. Third body shot and Champ grunted and grabbed me, pulling me into a clinch while the ref worked us apart. That was the first sign that a nigga knew he might be losing. Any time they grabbed you, that meant you had the upper hand. When his eyes found mine after that the blankness was gone. He knew now, I wasn’t about to make shit easy for his bitch ass. Like I said, I wanted that name up off him.He was no longer about to be the champ around this muthafucka. I had too much on the line.
Good. Now he knew what kind of night this was gonna be.
Second round he adjusted and started timing my rushes, using his jab to keep me at the end of his range, circling away every time I tried to cut him off. He was smart about it and a couple times his right hand found my jaw when I came in wrong and I felt it rattle through my whole head. This nigga’s right hand was everything they said it was.
But I kept coming. Every time he hit me I came forward harder because that’s all I knew how to do. The only way through something that was trying to stop you, was to keep movingstraight ahead. I had learned that before I was old enough to put words to it.
Third round I pressed the whole round. Staying inside, working the body, making him feel me in his ribs with every exchange. He was starting to favor his left side when he moved, I clocked that and made a mental note of it. His body was feeling the work even if his face wasn’t showing it yet. My aim was to just keep swinging and tire this nigga out. I wasn’t giving him time to get a second wind in.
Fourth round I came out the corner and went straight at him and didn’t stop. No overthinking, no feeling out, just pressure from the first second. He caught me with a jab that snapped my head back and I walked through it. I got inside and went to the body again, three hard shots to the same ribs I had been working all night and when he dropped his right elbow to protect them I came upstairs with a left hook that caught him hard as hell in the jaw. I was tired of playing and dancing with this nigga. I had to make him feel me.
His legs moved wrong under him for the first time all night.
The feeling that I got in my chest was straight adrenaline. I was so close to doing what no other nigga could. That shit caught me by surprise even though I knew what my goal was.
He grabbed me and held on. I let him because I could feel it now. The shift. The moment in a fight when the other man’s body starts telling the truth that his face won’t. Champ was still standing but something in him had changed and we both knew it. This was my muthafuckin time to shine and as much as I wanted to feel bad for this mane, I couldn’t. It was him or me.
Fifth round he came out trying to end it. He knew it was close and he was hunting now, pressing forward, throwing with everything he had behind every punch, looking for the one shot that had put twenty nine other men on the ground. He was dangerous and I knew it and I respected it and I still walked straight into him.
He hit me with a mean ass right that turned everything white for a split second. This nigga had me dazed and in my mind all I heard was “down goes Frazier” and I couldn’t let that be my story.
My legs went limp almost and I grabbed him, held on while the ref screamed at us and my vision came back piece by piece. But damn, this nigga was cold. He was in my ear telling me to stay down next time and I wasn’t hearing none of it because I was already somewhere else in my head.
I was in a parking lot at five years old, watching my father get shot in his head right in front of me. I was watching my moms leave the house before sunrise everyday to work two jobs for us after losing her husband while having to raise three boys alone. I was watching Melo and Mazi walk around that campus three hours away with their whole lives in front of them. I had shit to do, and losing wasn’t one of them.
I shoved Champ off me hard as hell.
He stepped in without waiting on me to recover. He was about to throw his famous jab, and at that same time I threw the right hand and everything I had went behind it. Every year of everything I ever went through, all of that went behind it. It landed on his jaw with a sound that cut through every voice in that basement. All that you could hear after that was gasps from the crowd. That punch was so powerful that his legs foldedunderneath him all at once and he hit that concrete. He did not move.
The basement went crazy.
I stood over him for a second. Just looking at him on the ground and knowing it was done. I felt it the second that my lick landed. Some things you just knew. And I knew that the voice in my head about Frazier going down wasn’t about me, at all.
Gutta rushed to where I stood, hit me from the side like a freight train both arms wrapped around me lifting me off the ground as soon as the ref timed, and called it.
“THAT’S MY BROTHER! THAT’S MY MUTHAFUCKIN BROTHER RIGHT THERE! I TOLD YALL! I TOLD EVERYBODY IN THIS BITCH HOW THIS FIGHT WAS GONE END! Gutta boasted.
I let him have it. He earned this moment same as I did. My ribs were screaming, my jaw was throbbing and my eye was swelling but I was standing and my name was still mine. Champ wasn’t Champ no more though.
The promoter came through the cage door two minutes later and handed the bag directly to Gutta the way we had arranged it before the fight. No big unnecessary show. Just the bag changing hands and an understanding that tonight was done. The promoter looked as if maybe he’d lost some money in the bet since I had won. The nigga barely wanted to let go of the bag. And although he congratulated me, I could still see the disappointment written all over his face. That’s why you can’t count on the underdog to always lose. Yeah, Champ had more fights than me, but he wasn’t at all more skilled.
We moved to make a discreet exit, and the feeling I had was bigger than pride right now. This shit right here! This solidified that I was the Streets Heavyweight.
—
The back exit dropped us into the alley behind the building. As soon as I was outside, I pulled the fresh night air into my lungs and felt every single thing Champ had put on my body. That pain hit me all at once now that the adrenaline was starting to drop. My ribs were the worst of it, something in there either cracked or close to it. That nigga Champ wasn’t no easy win. The nigga worked my ass overtime. My jaw on the left side was swollen. Eye tightening from the cut above it that the butterfly tape wasn’t gonna hold much longer.
