Suckerpunch: (2011) Read Online Free PDF

tissue around my eyes had caused the most trouble, ending sparring sessions when a glancing elbow or inadvertent head butt opened a gash. It was important to let those heal completely before a fight; the athletic commission wouldn’t let you compete with a preexisting cut. Like not having sex because you’d worked too hard on the foreplay.
     
    Gil got in front of me and Jairo and looked us over. “How you feeling?”
     
    “Good,” I said.
     
    “You look like shit.”
     
    “Thanks.”
     
    “Is that food from last night causing any trouble?”
     
    “Nope.” Even if it made my legs fall off, I wouldn’t risk a ban of that menu.
     
    “Are you focused?”
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “What are you thinking about right now?”
     
    I didn’t know the answer to that.
     
    Gil said, “Are you thinking about Junior Burbank or about how tired you are?”
     
    I sucked on my mouthguard. “Both?”
     
    “Wrong. If you’re thinking about how tired you are—
at all
—nothing else matters.”
     
    “That’s true,” Jairo said.
     
    I appreciated his input.
     
    “Junior Burbank,” Gil said. “He’s the guy you’re fighting tomorrow. Remember him?”
     
    I nodded.
     
    Gil scoffed. “No one wants you to win this fight. Eddie sure as hell doesn’t. A one-fight contract? Please. He wants his golden boy to powerbomb and ground and pound his way all the way to the belt so he can sell Junior Burbank chewing tobacco and T-shirts that are way too tight. Eddie brought you in to be the guy getting fucked up in a highlight reel. The clip they show before the rest of Burbank’s fights. Look what he did to Woodshed Wallace, the only guy to beat him.”
     
    I bit down on my mouthguard. The rubber protested.
     
    Gil was good at this. “After that, Eddie’s got no use for you. One and done. What do you think about that?”
     
    “I think he’s going to get a surprise.”
     
    He smiled. “Okay. So tell me the game plan.” Switch me from running through a wall to chess, just like that. “And take your mouthguard out. Don’t spit on me.”
     
    I popped it out. “He’s going to try to take me down. I’m not going to let him.”
     
    “And if he does?”
     
    “I’ll get back up.”
     
    Gil nodded. “Show me.”
     
    Jairo shot in again, and again I sprawled on top of him and shoved him back. I wrapped his head in the Muay Thai plum on the way up and pulled his face down into my knee, stopping an inch from impact. I pushed him away before he could go for a Greco clinch and moved to my left.
     
    “Good,” Gil said. “If you feel that Thai clinch is tight, keep it. But he’s a strong bastard, so be careful he doesn’t just pick you up with his head.”
     
    The fights Gil watched didn’t show Burbank having to defend the Thai plum, but his neck was thick enough he might just bull right out of it. If I got a good clinch on him and he didn’t know what to do, I’d put some knees into his belly and liver and legs and hopefully open him up for a couple to the face.
     
    But I had to be careful. If my elbows were too far out, he could get a single underhook by wrapping one of his arms under mine, hooking his hand over my shoulder, and pulling it close to his body. From there he could go to double underhooks and wrap his arms around the small of my back in the Greco-Roman clinch and pull my hips in, and once that happened I’d get a good look at the world upside down.
     
    Gil said, “Let him get it. Work your way out.”
     
    Jairo did a great impression of a wrestler and pulled me in. I dropped my weight down, but it didn’t matter. He lifted me off the mat and torqued his body to the left fast enough to make my legs flap around like charged fire hoses. He dropped to one knee and set me down gently on my back with his shoulder in my sternum. If he’d gone full force, I probably would have been dazed or had the wind knocked out of me. At the very least something would have shot out of my body from