Chapter 3 - Tournament in the Gym

The next day, Adrian and Martin were walking back to the gym to get some training in since they don't have to work today. They walked into a group of their fellow fighters being more excited than usual.

They found Tyson setting up his gloves, and putting his helmet on.

"Tyson, what the hell is happening?" Martin asked in a loud tone to get Tyson's attention.

"Oh shit, hey guys," Tyson said, jolted by Martin getting his attention. "Mr. Syvone told us that there is an amateur tournament and since we have a team we can get one of us per weight class into it. So he is hosting an in-house tournament to determine the people that will go."

"That is fucking cool," Adrian said excitedly. "I can't wait to beat some people up."

"He has brackets up, we are going first round starting with Flyweight in thirty minutes so warm-up," Tyson says as he straps up his helmet. Adrian and Martin walk up to the wall that has the brackets set up.

"Huh, for me there are only two of us," Adrian said. "It is just me and Joshua so my guess is that we are towards the end of it."

"There are six people in my weight class," Martin said excitedly. "Can't wait for us to win so we can go to this."

"I mean we don't know any of these guys, it is only our second day, so let's just try," Adrian said, putting on earbuds to listen to music.

"You can only say that because you got one motherfucker to deal with," Martin said irritatedly. "I have to win two fights in order to go to the tournament."

"Martin, just calm down," Adrian said as he put his other earbud in listening to music just walking around bouncing as he was preparing himself. He notices Joshua walk up towards him.

"ADRIAN!" Joshua yelled as Adrian took out one of the earbuds. "I am going to kick your young ass."

"I like to see you try," Adrian said as he walked up to Joshua, the two men were face to face with each other. Then they separate themselves, still staring at each other ready for the fight. Adrian and Martin spent the rest of their time warming up by jogging on treadmills, practicing on punch bags, and wrestling moves. They did the warm-up separately but stretched together like they would do back on the wrestling team.

"Adrian, can you help me stretch my legs out?" Martin asked as he lay on the ground.

"I got you, Martin," Adrian said as he grabbed Martin's right ankle. He raised it up where his right leg till his legs formed an "L" then he pushed it past the "L" shape. He pushes it, adjusting to Martin's request to give him a great stretch. Then Adrian went to fold his right leg and pushed on his leg and bent his knee as someone was kneeling. He then pushed the kneeled knee into Martin's chest still adjusting to whatever Martin thought will help him out for today. Adrian repeats the process on his left side then helps Martin back up onto his as he continues his own stretching. They continued till they heard Mr. Syvone on his microphone.

"I would like to thank every single fighter that we employ. Thank you to all of you who want your opportunity to make your name so that hopefully you can go to the pros." Mr. Syvone said as his voice echoed through the gym. "I like to start with our Flyweight. Wearing the red shorts, we have Landon Harris, in the other corner dawning the blue shorts Lucas Drake," the crowd roared in excitement. "Remember the rules, no dirty plays like striking a downed open, no scratching, no holding on gloves or shorts, save that for your significant other, no open finger strike, and most importantly don't be a bitch trying to throw someone out of the ring or be timid. READY?" Mr. Syvone yelled looking at both fighters. They both nod. "GO!" Mr. Syvone said as he moved away from the fighters creeping towards each other. As both inches closer the excitement rose. From the sounds of the people, it sounds like they want Landon to win the fight. Both fighters are still just moving, gauging each other by throwing jabs and switching their lead foot. Then Lucas decided to try to make a move by sweeping up Landon's feet with kicks. It does work as Landon moves to the side and attempts to perform a wrestling move by going at his leg to try to take him down. It worked as Lucas slammed to the canvas as Landon had a hold of his leg. Lucas tried to wiggle himself out but Landon dragged him back and got on top of him. Landon started to throw punches as Lucas tried to block and avoid them. As he moved, Landon got Lucas back to the canvas and gave him a chest punch to make him drop his guard. It worked as Landon got clear face punches in. It was right in the nose and kept increasing as the crowd got more into the fight cheering for the domination they were watching. Mr. Syvone stepped in and stopped the fight. Landon got off and helped his opponent up. Mr. Syvone raised Landon's hand as the crowd cheered and sent both to the corner where there were three people. Two men and a girl, Adrian assumed they are the people who would clean up blood off of fighters in between rounds. Adrian watched as two more flyweights walked up for their fight. He checks the paper to see how many fights he has till Tyson's fights so he can watch. Two more flyweights, both small and skinny as expected. Right when Mr. Syvone was about to announce the names, Adrian was interrupted by Tyson approaching him.

"You ready, Tyson?" Adrian asked Tyson, extending his arm out for a slap.

"Yeah, even though I am going against the best fighter in the gym," Tyson said as he slapped Adrian's hand loudly.

"And who the hell is that?" Adrian asked Tyson, confused by his answer.

"Demetrius McCoy, he has the highest win percentage out of all of us being undefeated in his fights. He fought twenty of them and all of them were knockouts," Tyson said, trying to hype himself up again.

"Tyson, I bet that motherfucker is overrated as hell," Adrian said as he slapped Tyson in the face. Tyson looked a little better than he was but still showed signs of nervousness. "Tyson, what would our coach tell us all the time during wrestling meets?"

"I don't care about winning, all I care about is that you try," Tyson said, remembering the line their former coach once said. "And remember when his bitchass daughter was there during winter break. Her ass was trying to motivate us but I know no one was listening to her." Tyson said getting his mind off of it.

"I remember that shit, her ass was giving off whore vibes with the tighter clothes, and remember when she would show up in those very short shorts," Adrian said with a goofy grin across his face. "You can't even lie though, Tyson, she had a nice ass on her."

"This motherfucker," Tyson said, slapping him on the back. "Even if you wanted her, one you have a girlfriend and two you know Coach Bev would not approve of it," Tyson said beginning to laugh.

"I forgot about Coach Bev and her, that is probably why he got his job anyway because he was in a relationship with the head coach's daughter," Adrian says back laughing, matching Tyson's energy. "So who the hell are all these people anyway Tyson, you've been here for like a year."

"Well, I know you meet Joshua. He is a good guy, I like him, fun to be around, and is a good boxer. The guy I am facing is an asshole, arrogant, and is not really respectful to people," Tyson said with increased anger in his voice. "There are other people that I talk with more examples, for example, Landon Harris. He is an asshole sometimes but it is funny as hell."

"Damn, I think the flyweight class is done," Adrain said, shocked as he looked away from Tyson to notice there are two different guys that look bigger than the other ones.

"Yeah there are only four of them on the team, rare to see people as small as them or as big as you, fat man," Tyson said jokingly punching Adrian in the side. They watched the current fight. It was an older-looking man against a much younger-looking guy in comparison to him.

"Who the hell is that older man and why is he still fighting?" Adrian asked, confused that a man that looks double his age is still fighting.

"That is Jermey Gritham, he is the oldest man under contract at thirty-five years old," Tyson said, surprising himself by repeating that fact. "He was in the pros before suffering a bad facial injury, he got kicked into the cage and it damaged his right eye. See look," Tyson said, hitting Adrian pointing at the cage. Adrian looked and noticed the weird look at Jermey's right eye, it looked off.

"Glass eye?" Adrian asked with only the gaze at the man fighting.

"Yeah it is, I will call him over after his fight, he knows more of the people here because he has been at this gym the longest," Tyson said returning to watch the match. They continue to watch the match. The other guy is just moving to the side of Jeremy's bad eye. Jeremy looked annoyed so he kept moving to observe him with his left eye. As Jeremy with a series of jabs, lowering himself and switching his stance, he seemed to find his opening. He raised his leg up to get his opponent to try to block his kick. A grin raised on Jeremy's face as he immediately moved to the left and kicked the younger guy in the cage as he moved in to beat him with a flurry of punches till Mr. Syvone stopped to declare a knockout. Jeremy helped the kid up and after getting his hand raised, he helped the guy to the people to get him patched up. Tyson started to wave his hand to get Jeremy's attention. Jeremy notices as he walks over to the two of them.

"Hey guy, how are you feeling," Jeremy said with his higher-pitched voice that caught Adrian off guard. He got a better look at Jeremy, he was a short man with a beginning of receding hair that was a light brown color. He had a decent beard on him. His body was skinny but still looked strong despite the weight.

"Pretty good, Jeremy, just warming up," Tyson said as he is doing his warm-up bounce around. "This is Adrian, one of my teammates I told you was interested in joining."

"Which one is this, Tyson?" Jeremy asked as he looked at Adrian shifting his head more to the left. He seemed like he wasn't paying attention at all.

"This is Adrian," Tyson said as he grabbed Adrian by his tank top. "The other one is named Martin and I do not know where he is at the moment," Tyson said, beginning to look around the room. "Do you know where he is, Adrian?"

"Martin is probably in the bathroom, man I don't even know Tyson," Adrian said with some sarcasm in his voice. Moving Tyson's hand off of his tank top in the process. "He is probably walking around with his headphones warming up, like what you should be doing right?" Adrian said, tapping Tyson. Tyson moved away from the two of them remembering that he had a match. "Tyson, good luck to you brother, you got this."

"Thank you, big fella," Tyson said as he gave Adrian a fist bump as he walked away. Adrian looks now to Jeremy.

"So you are Adrian, huh?" Jeremy said, glancing Adrian up and down with his one eye. "Tyson told me things about you."

"Like what, sir?" Adrian asked, concerned with what Tyson could possibly say to him.

"He said that you are a good man with the potential to be a great fighter, and he showed me your wrestling highlights," Jeremy said as he pulled up his phone. As he unlocked his phone, he went to his messages showing his conversation with Tyson. "See," Jeremy said as he showed videos that Tyson sent of Adrian and Martin wrestling. "I enjoyed watching y'all's matches, I used to wrestle back in my day."

"What weight class did you wrestle at?" Adrian asked with excitement as he found another wrestler to hang out with.

"I wrestled at hundred forty-five pounds in college, that is until I went into MMA and lost some of the remaining fat on me," Jeremy said laughing as he slapped at his abs. "You wrestled heavyweight I assume, big man?"

"No I wrestled at hundred and six pounds," Adrian said with a straight face till he began to burst out laughing. "Yeah, I wrestled at heavyweight."

"You made it to the state competition right?" Jeremy said with a bit of laughter. "Tyson said you were really good."

"I made it to state twice, my junior and senior year. Junior year I performed solid and senior year I was top ten," Adrian said looking back on those moments.

"Good for you, there are some other wrestlers in this place," Jeremy said.

"Like who?" Adrian asked. "Other than us, Tyson and Martin."

"Landon, Aaron Levi, and Nico Coleman," Jeremy said, thinking of the primary wrestler on the team. "I know the last two I doubt you have seen, am I right?"

"Yeah, well I just heard about Landon literally like thirty minutes ago," Adrian said thinking to himself. "I have probably seen the other two but I haven't talked to them." He looks to the ring and sees two different people fighting. "Are any of them the people you are talking about?"

Jeremy looks at the ring covering one of his eyes, "Nope, not it."

"Damn," Adrian said, snapping his fingers together with disappointment.

"Look, I will probably try to set some sort of dinner for us after this to talk, get more introduced with the group," Jeremy told Adrian. "I will probably get as many guys as I can get."

"Thank you, Jeremy I will probably go back to watching some matches," Adrian said giving a thumbs up.

"No problem I will let you be," Jeremey said, giving him a wave then walking away.

"See you later," Adrian said, waving back. He looks down on his phone, puts his headphones in, and warms up to his music for a bit. That for a while until the sound of the crowd of other fighters' cheers grew very loud. He removes his headphones and looks back towards the cage to sees that it is a different fight than the one that was right after Jermey's. Still the same weight class but was one Asian guy against a light skin guy and they were going at it. Just throwing punches, nonstop movement with sweat and blood dripping from their face. The light skin guy kicked the Asian dude and his body just dropped. Knocked out cold. The crowd applauded the fight they watched. Adrian walked up to one of the guys clapping. "How long did this match last?"

"It lasted for all fifteen minutes and he barely beat the other guy," a watcher explained to Adrian.

"Damn that is probably one of the best fights," Adrian said,

"Shit, maybe I don't know," the watcher replied back to Adrian. Adrian stops talking to the man and goes back up to watch the two of them limp themselves off the cage with Mr. Syvone helping them off. He cleans off the blood on the ring which was a process. Then announced another Bantamweight fight, it was one taller-looking guy in comparison to his opponent who is shorter but built. Adrian watched the way they moved, fast movement, constant movement, a flurry of fake, and constantly having their guards up. It looked like a dance to Adrian, then the stockier of the two fighters stepped in and landed a hard punch to the other knocking him out. It disappointed Adrian seeing that fit, he would rather it have lasted longer. But it was on to other fights. The next couple of fights were nothing of not to Adrian as he was spending the time warming himself up. That was until Mr. Syvone announced a familiar name to Adrian, Aaron Levi, he was in the featherweight weight class. He was a smaller man for the weight with wild blonde hair and his demeanor matching it with him constantly trying to taunt his opponent by waving his fingers signaling him to come closer. The opponent fell for the taunt as Aaron moved to the dude and kicked the guy right in his face knocking him out. He boasted himself off the ring with him shaking his arms side to side. Then after that, there was nothing of note. That was until Adrian saw Martin again next to Tyson. Tyson had his helmet and gloves on, looking like a Roman gladiator ready to put on a show in the coliseum. Murmurs erupted from the crowd.

"That is going to get murdered," one man said.

"Why even compete against Demetrius of all people?" Another man with a snake tattoo on his arm said. Adrian walked up to Tyson moving people out of the way to stand by Martin. "You got this shit, Tyson," Adrian said, giving him hype-up slaps on his body. Tyson walked into the ring and just started bouncing around preparing himself.

"And in this corner, wearing the re…" Mr. Syvone said before getting interrupted by a figure walking up to the ring

"Man cut all that bullshit, no cares about that," the figure said as the crowd started getting hyped. "All these people care about is me beating the shit out of this motherfucker."