The Art of Being Tony (Tony Winters Book 1) Page 11

  Near the end of the first round, Ashley managed a nice sweep, reversing it all. At that point, trying to do what Fox would, even if it was hard, he simply kicked out to the side and forced himself up, Taking Ash with him. Physically picking her up all the way off the mat. It took everything he had to manage it, but a good percentage of the time it really was what the other fighter was going to do.

  Then he just pushed her away with both hands, like they were little kids on the playground, just as the bell rang.

  It was hard to keep the act up, since he didn’t really have the power needed to show the difference and even if he’d taken her by surprise in the first round, that didn’t last. In the second round she rushed him and took command right away, even blocking the punch that had been aimed at her head when she did it. Then it was into more technical jujitsu, which he didn’t really know. The trick there was that he kept trying to power out of everything, as hard as he could and hitting her to make it harder to grab his arms or neck.

  Holding her from the bottom was difficult, but accurate, since his guard from that position was weak too. Not as bad as Rends, but certainly nothing that was going to change the sparring session by that much. He did try to hold her that way and rest when he could, pushing her to use more energy when possible. That was one thing about how Fox fought, that he hadn’t really gotten from the video. She wasted huge amounts of energy. Enough that he really doubted that it would be possible to do that kind of thing for ten rounds.

  Still, it was his job to try, so that his buddy would be ready. When she finally got a good arm bar going, he did what he’d seen the other fighter do one time and stood up, dragging her along as she tried to lock the arm out and then punched himself in the bend of the elbow, using both hands and some kicks to recapture his arm. It hurt to do, but kind of worked, in a messy and half controlled fashion.

  Then they were brought back to their feet, so he started in with low roundhouse kicks, until he got a takedown. It wasn’t done that well, since he was becoming exhausted, but he kept going, using similar techniques, until he ended up on his stomach, with an adult woman on his back, choking him out. He tried to stand up and shake her off, but the world went black first, his tongue forcing out of his mouth.

  When he woke up, Ash was right there, calling his name and looking confused.

  “Are you all right? I… Why didn’t you tap out?”

  It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, since Jen wasn’t over to them yet. Even though she was jogging. Sitting up, he waved at her to back up, knowing that he wasn’t really hurt. Though he did cheat and take several deep breaths that he wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

  “Fox doesn’t submit. Really, that’s why she wins, half the time. It was in the videos.” That came from Rick, who was watching him, closely. Probably because he’d gone with the cross dressing thing for the sparring match.

  That probably looked a little girly. Though if Rick cared about that, then he was in the wrong line of work, since a third of his fighters were too.

  Jen, looking half freaked out, started them fighting again, which meant Ash was treated to a flashy, jumping, downward punch that shouldn’t have worked at all, but was a signature Fox move. The lady wasn’t much of a fighter really and was using strength and speed to cover for that fact. Still, doing something that odd caught Ash, right in the side of the face, knocking her down. Which she rolled out of, coming back to her feet, with her hands up, ready to block a kick to the face as she stood.

  Which he made her do, since Fox always did that. Really, she fought women in a way that a lot of men would find close to being dirty. That was the other part of why she kept winning. Still, those tactics weren’t going to work over ten rounds. By round five it was nearly impossible to keep up and honestly, if he had a choice, Anthony would have stopped then. That wasn’t the game though, so he did his best, trying not to slip from what Fox would have done in the same situation.

  A few times it didn’t work, since he lacked the strength for it and Ash adapted by the end, getting used to all the tricks. So he used one more and suddenly changed on the last round, presenting as a boxer first, then loading up a flurry of kicks and stomps and adding a hip toss. Fox wouldn’t normally do that, but had, once out of the ten fights he’d looked at. It had been a mistake, mainly, but it had kind of worked at the time and might happen again.

  Then he went back to the ground and pound tactics, which were controlled and even if he was on top, he ended up with his left arm nearly being broken when the bell rang.

  Rolling to the side as the woman let go, he grinned.

  “Owwww! That hurts! If you had a few more seconds, I would have had to give up. That, or have my arm dislocated. My shoulder? Either way would help you in a real fight. Either she taps, or loses the arm for the rest of the match.” He rubbed it, thinking that was the right place for things to have been happening.

  Then, for some reason, he was being hugged, hard.

  By Raul, Jen’s trainer.

  “Oh, this! This! You do this for Nick? I’ll get you tapes of his opponent.” He clapped his hands, smiling like it was Christmas.

  At least that was the saying. Deirdre had never really done that holiday. Or any of them. Well, not other than Cinco de Mayo. That and St. Patrick’s Day. Things where getting drunk was cheap, if you were a scantily clad woman. Still, when the strange man stopped trying to hold him, Ash took a turn. She was a bit more manly about it, hitting him on the back a few times for good measure.

  “I feel like a mid-sized family car hit me. That was good. Halfway through I forgot we weren’t actually in a fight. Really, I forgot that I wasn’t in the ring with Fox Rends… Which probably means I have brain damage. Did we get video of this?”

  Rick nodded.

  “Like I wasn’t going to get my nephew dressed up and dancing around like that? We should go over that now, while everything is still fresh. My office. Raul, get those tapes? Tony will need to practice first, I bet. Wilcox is a far more technical fighter.”

  Then, as if it made sense, they let him change and took him to the upper level, so that they could all go over everything. Including all the mistakes that he made that Fox wouldn’t have.

  It was, more or less, fun.

  Chapter eight

  Girl impersonations aside, he actually had a lot to do in order to get ready for the sparring on Wednesday. That was on top of his own training and Tuesday afternoon was spent with Denny, going over several moves that Nick would be facing against Wilcox. On the good side, both men were kind of new to MMA fighting and while both were tough and technical, it looked like their guy had a real edge going into his fight.

  Of course, that pretty much had to mean that his opponent was going to try and come at him suddenly with a much higher skill level, both on his feet and on the ground. They’d needed to get Dave in to help with that part, since Denny wasn’t really certain what they could expect from someone like that. It meant drilling the next day and trying not to fake Nick out too much.

  If anything, the fight was a lot harder than the one with Ashley and not because she was a girl either. The man he was trying to pretend to be was simply a very good fighter and had skills, which meant faking something that Anthony couldn’t just gut his way through. Not that they wouldn’t have to do that, too. Ten rounds made for a long fight on the ground.

  Nick was stronger than he was at the same time, being an adult man, who worked out. Larger, by about forty pounds and that wasn’t just going to add into weight, since most of the difference was in muscle, according to Rick.

  In the end, without any music, or fanfare, dressed in tight shorts and with a pentagram drawn over his heart in blue ink, since Wilcox had that going on, he tried his very best to bring the same level of game to the situation that the opponent would. That meant fighting smart and just as hard as he could manage. Even at that it wouldn’t be enough, so Anthony tried to throw in some tricks that Wilcox could, possibly, pull out.

&nb
sp; Including the same ground and pound that Fox often led with.

  It kind of worked and at the end of the ten rounds, everyone seemed happy enough and they went to look at the tapes again. This time, Rick pointed at several things he did, suggesting standing work that would have possibly functioned more believably and Raul did the same for things on the ground, suggesting things that the coming opponent might have made happen. Things that he’d totally missed.

  “Here, that sweep, it is weak. Tony, you can do better. Take the elbow and pull it harder, then try it. Nick, you have to be ready for that. It will happen. Go, practice all of this. You spar again next week, like this, only better?” It wasn’t really a question, so Tony nodded.

  “Got it. We’ll fix these things. I need to work on boxing, too.” It was just true and he meant hitting the bags in the morning, instead of just doing MMA like he had that day, but Rick smiled at him.

  “Friday. Keep the afternoon free. You might miss the Cardio classes, so get with Leslie and set up someone else to work that for the day. No fight for us this week, on Saturday, or the next, for the Fourth. So we get a bit of a break that way. The big fight month coming next, on the boxing side, is August. MMA is dominating September and we have more people fighting over all, if you’re willing to keep sparring up like you did with Nick?”

  Having been soaking in the gym world, he got that Rick wasn’t talking about his poor skills compared to the other man, though the video had kind of spoken to that. He really needed to step things up for Nick by the next time they worked together again. No, his uncle was talking about working that many weight classes above his own. He was down to a solid one-fifteen and was leaner already. Nick was working at about one-fifty-five. A lot of people would have refused to go against a pro with that kind of advantage, since it kind of hurt to even try. It did, but that was his role there, so far.

  A way that he could be worth keeping around.

  “I’m in. I just need to figure out… Well, you know, what Raul was saying.”

  He got to jog out then and managed to talk to Leslie, about the next day.

  “I don’t know what’s planned, but given who was saying it, my guess is that it will be something fun. As in painful and hard. I’ll try to get someone in to keep it all tidy for you? Let me ask around?”

  The woman, who was cute, in an older way and fit, touched his arm. He wasn’t stupid enough to miss that she was flirting with him. Also that it was the fake kind of thing some women did to get things from men, even if they didn’t really mean they wanted to have sex with them. It wasn’t really needed though, since he was already doing it.

  Which meant she was probably just trying to be nice and didn’t have a great grasp on that kind of thing. He didn’t either, so it was probably fair.

  “Thanks, Sweetie! I really appreciate it.” Just as she did that, the blue haired and nose ringed woman, the one with the mock tribal face tattoo, who was fairly young for the class, came in and looked around like she wanted to fight someone. He honestly expected that to be him, but her eyes moved right past Leslie and then his head, as she glared at a group of men over in the corner, skipping rope to warm up.

  “They just come to look at women.” It was a weird thing to say really.

  Some of them probably had, at first. Then, most of those men didn’t go to Cardio-Boxing classes. They went in for things like aerobics, or even yoga. Some of the women that did that kind of thing even dressed to catch attention. After all, no one looked that great after fifty minutes in Leslie’s class. Even she would go from decently hot, to drenched rat, by the end of the night. Those men, for all that they were a bit pudgy around the middle, all worked really hard, too.

  He knew that for a fact, since he was the one that would be cleaning up the puddles they left on the floor. Still, he didn’t say anything about it, since Tony wouldn’t. Instead, he just walked around, offering towels to anyone that wanted them… Then dashed to Rick’s office, to make certain the video was going. The blue haired lady hadn’t pretended to get hurt yet, or accused anyone of doing anything as far as he knew, but she was acting sketchy.

  Anyone should have been able to see that most of the men that went to a gym like that had come to exercise. Sure, some of them did glance at people, occasionally, but it wasn’t some kind of manly death stare. It certainly wasn’t happening behind them. If anyone had a right to complain about being looked at that way, it would be Leslie, anyway. The whole class checked her out, almost constantly.

  So, instead of asking Denny or Nick to take his humble towel and puddle duty, he waved down Dani. She smiled when he did it and stood there waiting for him to come over.

  “I knew it, you want to go out, right? I do hear that… I have a boyfriend though, so it will have to be done in secret.” Given that there was a smiling man behind her, wearing street clothes, he got the idea. This would be her boyfriend.

  “Yeah, that’s the problem with relationships, always in the way of the good time. Anyway, are you busy Friday night? Your boyfriend can come. I’m going to be busy, I hear and need someone to help with the most important job ever!”

  The guy laughed a bit, but seemed pleasantly ugly and not that worried that some kid was going to try and take his girl from right under his nose. Which wasn’t happening. For one thing, he wasn’t that in to her. Plus, she was kind of rude to her boyfriend, doing that right in front of him like she was. That wouldn’t make her a great catch, even if he could steal her away.

  On the good side, when she heard what was needed and how easy it would be, she nodded.

  “Eh? Sure. Why not? My honey is working that day and I’m all out of decent movies to watch. I don’t suppose I get paid for that?” She looked hopeful, which was ridiculous.

  “Nope. Only in good will. Most of which will be going to me, for getting you to come in the first place. Oh, hey, can you get a video of that class. One of the students is acting a bit funny. Not bad, but…” That meant clearing it with Rick and all that, but the man probably wouldn’t mind, as long as they asked first. Maybe not even then, but it was better to double check that kind of thing.

  She was even willing to go right then to get the idea checked out, even if it meant leaving her guy like she was. Because of that, Anthony hurried, since waiting was kind of boring. Rick liked the plan well enough and showed her the system, if only briefly.

  “Really, just hit this button at three or so and we’ll get all the cams going for the night. We can pull out what we need later. It won’t really waste anything, since the hard drive can be reused. It isn’t like the old days, with video tapes. Now those were a mess.”

  He started to go into that, but Anthony smiled and waved at him.

  “We have to get Dani back. Her boyfriend is waiting all alone, which has to suck. I really shouldn’t have pulled her away like this. Sorry.”

  The woman, who was a bit square jawed, even being fit like she was, made a face.

  “Neh… I wouldn’t really call him my boyfriend. Truth be told, we only just started to go out and he doesn’t really seem that into me. I mean, we haven’t even done it and I keep hinting, so that isn’t a great sign, right?”

  Rick coughed a bit, but Anthony could see her point.

  “Yeah. Probably not then. Still, if you do something with him, make sure he wraps it up first. STIs and babies will both mess up your training. A guy you might not even be dating in a month isn’t worth that.”

  She looked at him and then shook her head a bit.

  “Yes, mom. I’ll be good. You’re right anyway.”

  Instead of acting flustered, like Rick was managing at the moment, Anthony smiled.

  “That’s a good girl. Really, we probably need to have the talk with everyone here soon. You know, about how safe sex and not drinking or shooting heroin between your toes leads to better fighters? That is the talk you have with people like this, right?”

  Walking away, Dani just looked over her shoulder at him and smiled.

&nb
sp; “Probably. See you tomorrow!”

  Then she ran back to her not-boyfriend. The guy seemed all right, but if an issue was keeping him from getting sex off an adult woman who was both in shape and good to go, then something was actually a bit off. Especially a man that looked like he did. Ugly guys couldn’t afford to be that picky, when it came to girls. Dani was a little plain, but not bad really and she was decent, personality wise. She had one, after all and it wasn’t just a show to get you to leave your wallet alone long enough to steal from. Asking for more was setting the bar pretty high.

  Before he walked away, to make sure everyone that needed a bit of fluffy white heaven in the form of an absorbent towel had one, Rick cleared his throat again. Actually he did that “Ah-hem” thing that Anthony had only seen in writing before that moment. It got him to spin in place, since it was clearly phony.

  “Shoot heroin between their toes?”

  “Oh, yeah. You know, to hide the track marks from their parole officer? Between the toes, under the tongue. I even knew this one guy that would shoot up under his foreskin. Right in front of everyone. It was just about as gross as it sounds. No one was going to check there though, which was his point.”

  His uncle gave him a look that seemed more troubled than informed.

  “Oh. I don’t think many people here will be doing that.”

  Copying Jen, Anthony blew out a gust of air and made a funny face.

  “Of course they won’t. They’ll just get some girl pregnant and have to go to work at a Seven-Eleven for seventy hours a week, ending any hope they had of being what they dream of. I bet that will happen at least once in the next year.” He paused. “Maybe not Seven-Eleven, but having to leave for that reason. I’ve seen it, too many times.”