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So I might see somebody knocked unconscious, and…this is entertainment? I don’t want to spoil Innes’s fun, but it does all feel a touch ancient Rome rather than twenty-first century.
When the second round starts, Blue seems determined to stay away from the cage. Red keeps coming forward, and for a while Blue circles out of reach. Then everything happens at once.
Red steps in. Blue catches him with a hard punch to the face, and Red drops to the mat.
“Oh!”
Blue is on him immediately, throwing punches. Red tries to get his arms up around his head, but a lot of the blows get through, and they keep on coming.
My stomach lurches. This is awful.
Then the referee grabs Blue and yanks him back. Blue throws his arms in the air, and the arena explodes with noise.
“It’s over?” I check.
“Yep. TKO—technical knockout. Walsh was still conscious, but the ref decided he wasn’t defending himself properly, so he stopped it. It’s a win for Doyle.”
Red—whose real name is Walsh, apparently—sits up. On the big screen, blood flows from above his left eyebrow. Someone hurries into the cage to tend to him.
The screen changes, showing a slow-motion replay of the last moments of the fight. I turn away. Seeing it once was bad enough—I don’t want to watch it again. Innes, though, is completely absorbed in it, his eyes bright.
It’s strange. He knows better than most what one bad accident can do to a body, yet it hasn’t dampened his fascination for sports where people willingly risk getting hurt. I don’t understand it, but maybe I’m not supposed to. Maybe it’s just a boy thing. Then again, Niamh rather ruins that theory.
More fights follow. Different shorts, different faces, different endings. Some make it all the way to the final horn, with a panel of three judges deciding the winner. Other fights, like the first, end suddenly to enormous cheers.
As the crowd applauds another victory, Emmy finally appears, a pass swinging from her neck. She drops into the seat beside me.
“Hi, you two. She’s next!”
“How’s she feeling?” Innes asks.
“Ready. She’s been pacing about desperate to get out there. I was really excited until a few minutes ago, but now I actually feel a little sick.”
Emmy has been head over heels for Niamh for weeks now, so I can understand the nerves. It’s one thing finding your girlfriend’s muscles sexy. It’s another watching someone try to punch her in the face.
Music starts, and a woman with tightly braided hair makes her way towards the cage.
“That’s her opponent,” Emmy says. “Sasha Maddox.”
Sasha goes through the same checks as the men, minus the indignity of the crotch slap. Beside me, Emmy’s knee bounces. Then the music changes, and Emmy grabs my arm. “This is her!”
She’s on her feet before I’ve spotted Niamh, cheering with both hands cupped round her mouth. I join in, though somewhat less enthusiastically.
Niamh looks calm enough as she approaches the cage. She, too, stops for the checks, then goes up the steps and inside.
After the introductions, the referee brings them together—I’m getting used to the format now—then the two women separate and the fight starts.
Niamh gets the better of the first exchange, landing two quick punches before Sasha backs away.
“Yes!” Emmy shouts, bouncing in her seat. “That’s it, Niamh!”
A few seconds later, Sasha fires back, and one of her punches catches Niamh cleanly across the face. Emmy’s cheering stops.
Niamh barely seems bothered, though. She resets, circles away, then moves forward again. She gets hold of Sasha and trips her onto the mat. Niamh follows her down, landing on top.
“Yes!” Emmy bellows. “Go on!”
Sasha tries to push Niamh away, but Niamh catches one of her arms, shifts round, and swings a leg over her head. Then she leans back, trapping Sasha’s arm between her thighs.
