“You’re a real inspiration, you know that?” I ask.
For the next little bit, I do my best to act like the tournament’s not such a huge deal; but when my phone starts ringing, I can’t get it to my ear fast enough. It might have been helpful to accept the call first.
“Dude, calm down,” Logan says as I answer the phone.
“Hello?” I speak.
“Hey.” It’s Ash. “Are we still going to that boxing match tonight?”
“MMA, actually,” I tell her. “But yeah. Doors open at eleven and it’ll probably go until one or two in the morning.”
She sighs. “All right,” she says. “I told you I’d give it a chance.”
Ash has been sharing some of her concerns about what I do. I think if she just goes to a match, she’ll see how much time and training these guys put in. She’ll see that we’re not just a bunch of thugs trying to beat each other senseless.
We are that, too, I guess, but that’s not all we are.
“You won’t regret it,” I tell her.
“I wish I had your confidence,” she says. “Are you still picking me up?”
“Yeah,” I tell her, “but we’re going to want to go there on foot. Too many cars around an abandoned building and a fight’s going to stick out like a broken nose. Worse still, if the place gets raided, you’re never going to be able to get to your car without being arrested and if you abandon it, they’ll just run the plates and track you down.”
She’s quiet.
“That almost never happens, though,” I tell her. “We’re careful about where we set up and who we tell about it.”
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll see you a little before eleven, then.”
She doesn’t sound very excited.
* * *
Ash seems nervous as we approach the building where tonight’s matches are to be held, but she’s still putting one foot in front of the other.
“I don’t get why you guys don’t just join a league or something,” she says. “It seems like that would be a safer approach.”
“You’ll have a hard time finding someone that doesn’t want to join up with UFC or Pride or any of the others,” I tell her. “That said, there are probably about as many people who come here in the course of a year as there are active professionals in MMA. Not everyone shows up on the same night, but you get the idea.”
We get to the door and a tall man in a black suit holds up his hand.
“What’s up, Big D?" I ask him.
“Private party,” he says.
“Snooker,” I tell him.
He nods and moves out of the way so we can enter the building.
As we pass D, Ash mutters, “I’m still skeptical about all this, but I have to admit it’s pretty cool you guys have your own password-enabled guard at the door.”
“I’ve got to prepare you for something,” I tell her.
“What, the possibility of being sprayed with someone else’s blood?” she asks, a little pale.
“No, you don’t have to worry about that,” I tell her. “Just don’t stand in the first row or two and you’ll be fine. Even if some does manage to get on you, everyone who fights here has to have clean blood test results from within three days of a given match or they aren’t allowed to fight. We’re careful about that sort of thing.”
I may be fighting a losing battle here.
“What I’ve got to prepare you for,” I tell her, “is the volume. These things can get pretty loud.”
We enter the building, this time a foreclosed house without any neighbors for a quarter mile, and we make our way through the empty space to the stairs. The basement is large, open, unfinished. Everyone’s congregated where the family room was supposed to be.
“This feels weird,” Ash says. “I don’t think I’m really comfortable here.”
“The fights haven’t even started yet!” I exclaim, drawing the attention of the group.
“Why are they staring at us?” Ash asks in a near-whisper.
“It’s fine,” I tell her. “Let’s just pick a good spot to watch and I’m sure you’ll blend in just fine.”
I appreciate the fact that she got dressed up nice for tonight’s festivities, but I probably should have told her that these gatherings aren’t exactly formal. Personally, I think she looks great in her short, black dress, but she can’t be too comfortable seeing that most of the people in attendance didn’t even bother wearing a shirt.
“So do women like never come to these things or what?” she asks.
“Women are here all the time,” I tell her. “They make up almost half our fights.”
“That’s sick!” Ash blurts.
“How so?” I ask.
“You make women fight for your entertainment?” I ask.
“First off, we don’t make anyone fight,” I tell her. “Second off, we’re not going to bar a whole gender from a sport. That’s incredibly sexist, don’t you think?”
Yeah, this isn’t going how I’d hoped. I’m just crossing my fingers that she starts to have a little more fun when the first fight gets going. We don’t have to wait long to find out.
The first match is between two bantamweight guys who end up talking crap to each other for most of the first round. By the time the first punch is thrown, Ash is ready to go.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to understand this. How many points do they get for leveling criticism at their opponent?” she asks.
“None,” I tell her. “Some guys do that to puff themselves up, but most people who get in there have a little better sense than that.”
“Okay, so what we’re really here to see is the violence?” she asks.
A couple of heads turn in our direction, each with a single eyebrow raised.
“We like to think of it more as sport than simple violence,” I tell her and the people eavesdropping on our conversation turn back toward the fight.
In the middle, the two guys are into their second round and the one with the long, blond hair is getting pounded by the one with the spiked, black hair. I don’t know these two. I’ve never seen them before and there’s a decent chance I never will again.
A lot of people come here the first time and either they don’t get to fight so they lose interest, or they’re so viciously mocked before, during, and after the fight, they can’t bring themselves to come back.
Imagine: Someone spends hours in the gym every week, years with trainers or coaches or senseis—often all of the above—and when it comes down to it, they decide taunting strangers are too great an obstacle to overcome.
Amateurs.
Longhaired blond guy manages to get to his feet and he catches black spiky hair guy hard on the chin, the latter’s knees buckling with the loss of consciousness.
The crowd of about two dozen erupts and Ash is covering her ears. If I can get her to stay for at least another fight or two, I have no doubt she’s going to start getting into it.
A lot of people are turned off by MMA the first time they see it because it’s so brutal, but the people who give it enough of a chance almost invariably end up hooked. I just need to find some way to convince her that it’s worth it.