Fighting to the Death (19 page)

I
’d been thinking about this moment for months and months, before I’d even set up the Vegas rematch. Every time I laid a brick on a building site and it cracked in two I felt that was what I’d like to do to Bill and Kenny: smack ‘em together until they cracked into tiny pieces because they’d never really given a fuck about me. They’d used and abused me for years. But for the moment I’d bite my tongue and play dumb for a windfall that I hoped would set me and my family up for life.

Bill and Kenny picked me up in Santa Monica with their two English minders in a black stretch limo to take me to the airport for the Vegas flight. Their flash motor was yet more evidence of the money they’d earned out of me. But this time I’d nailed them down for the purse and that had got right up their hooters.

I could feel their irritation even as we rode in that limo to
LAX. No doubt they thought they couldn’t lose, whatever the outcome of the fight. I could see in their eyes they thought I was nothing more than a stupid lump of lard.

‘You fit then?’ said Kenny, before giving Bill a big wink.

Fucking arsehole thought I hadn’t spotted it. They were really getting on my tits. They no doubt thought I was walking into a thrashing. Maybe they were right, but I had a secret game plan and I was sticking to it.

I didn’t respond.

Then Kenny asked me again if I was fit and healthy. I’d been very careful not to wear tight-fitting clothes so they couldn’t make out whether I was in shape or not. I ignored them again and asked for a drink instead – something I’d never done before a fight in my life. Kenny pulled open the minibar in between the soft white leather limo seats and poured me a huge bourbon. I knocked it back in one gulp. They looked at each other, then back to me.

‘You want another one?’

‘Why not?’ I replied, lighting a fourth Marlboro Light. They were loving every moment, but I didn’t give a toss that they thought I was a fat lump about to get a thrashing. By the time we got to LAX they were treating me as if I was not only stupid but also a drunk. Truth was, the adrenaline was rushing so fast through my body that the alcohol had little or no effect on me. I was buzzing with anticipation, and had Bill and Kenny in my sights.

‘You sure you can handle this one?’ asked Kenny, just before we clambered out of the limo.

‘Yeah!’ I drooled.

Just then Bill chipped in merrily: ‘There’s no turning back now, Son.’

‘Turnin’ back?’ I grabbed him by the lapels drunkenly. ‘I’m gonna kill that bastard.’

I slurped the bourbon out of the bottom of my glass and slammed it down on the armrest. Bill was smirking at Kenny again. It was a look of sheer contempt that they yet again thought I hadn’t noticed.

They stuck me on an aisle seat next to the two English minders on the plane out to Vegas. These two meat merchants barely said a word, but they seemed happy to order me another bourbon. Just before we landed, one of them perked up and asked me: ‘How you feelin’ then?’

‘Mind your own fuckin’ business,’ I snapped back.

It wasn’t difficult sounding aggressive, because I meant every word of it. This bout was going to be different from all the rest. Despite the booze and the fags I felt on top of the fucking world. Mentally and physically I believed I was numero uno. But you can never be sure if you’re kidding yourself in this game.

There was another rented stretch limo waiting for us at Las Vegas Airport. We headed down the main strip past the biggest casinos and then turned into a vast open-air car park behind the big hall that was the fight venue. My pre-match diet of bourbon and Marlboro Lights had continued to amuse Kenny and Bill on the trip from the airport.

I realised the moment I walked into the hall that this bout really had been hyped as the Big One. There were many more people than the last Vegas clash. The expectant buzz was there for all to see and feel.

‘This the only fight on the bill?’ I asked Kenny.

‘They’re all here for you, Son,’ he replied, but I could tell from the tone of his voice he didn’t mean a word of it.

I told Kenny and Bill to make sure I wasn’t referred to as the ‘English Bulldog’ or ‘London Limey’ this time. I hated those nicknames and I also wanted to remain as anonymous as possible. I preferred everyone to think I was just a desperate nobody, out for drunken revenge on a tasty local fighter who’d given me a thrashing a few years back and was about to do it again.

I stopped about thirty feet from the cage, blinked and cleared my throat. That’s when I wobbled a bit on my pins.

‘You alright, Son?’ asked Bill.

I nodded and carried on heading towards the cage, wearing the usual jeans, but with an old baggy sweatshirt over my T-shirt.

Kenny and Bill veered away from me and my two minders to speak with a smartly dressed fella in a light brown double-breasted suit. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but it was obviously important. Then they handed over a huge wedge of cash. It must have been tens of thousands of dollars. They were placing their bets but I knew it wasn’t on me. After all, I’d lost the last fight and now I looked like shit. Bets were probably in the region of three to one against me at the very least.

I made a point of not taking off that old sweatshirt until I was just about to get in the cage because I didn’t want anyone – especially Bill and Kenny – to see what condition I was in.

The crowd got more and more noisy as I approached. The compère was already standing in the cage with a mike in his hand. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the fight of the year. It’s a rematch. We’ve got Paco from Mexico City against the mystery man.’

‘Who da fuck is he?’ screamed one voice from the audience.

‘He got whipped a couple of years back. Now he’s back for more.’

‘Yeah, he looks real fat,’ yelled another above the din.

As I got even closer to the cage I noticed a lot people holding bottles of champagne by the neck. Others were snorting cocaine off their clenched fists. Bill and Kenny stopped just in front of me to hand another bookie some more cash. I was well chuffed because I hoped they were about to lose a fortune.

I then went through a drunken warm-up routine. Much louder and more obvious than ever before – I suppose some would call it showboating. The crowd laughed as if I was some kind of idiot. I even did a defiant one-minute Ali shuffle but they kept yelling at me like I was a stand-up comic telling lousy jokes. Across the other side of the cage my opponent looked totally chilled and super-confident. He was smiling and waving to the crowd. They loved him. I was just the patsy about to get a serious beating.

Then I racked up the tension by stabbing my finger in the air at him.

‘I’m goin’ to ‘ave you,’ I screamed. ‘I’m goin’ to tear you to pieces!’

I just couldn’t help myself. The crowd were loving it for all the wrong reasons.

I looked across at Bill, pulled my cheeks up with my thumbs and forefingers to make a jokey, smiley face. He didn’t smile back. He was looking at me as if I was some sort of crazy, drunken lunatic.

Dramatic classical music played over the PA system, making the atmosphere even more awesome. In earlier years, I might
have felt intimidated, but not today. I was on top of the fucking world. The buzz was tingling through every bone in my body. And the crowd’s attitude didn’t bother me one bit.

Just then the compère coughed to clear his mike. ‘Are the fighters ready to fight?’

We both nodded at each other.

‘Will the warriors please enter the cage.’

Warriors
? Typical Yanks – they have to give everything a slab of top spin.

Just before I stooped to get through the doorway to the cage, I ripped off the old baggy sweatshirt I’d been wearing. That’s when I spotted Kenny’s eyes examining my physique. His expression now wasn’t the chirpy, smiling one I’d grown to hate. He nudged Bill and whispered something in his ear. ‘I’ll show ‘em,’ I thought to myself. ‘I’ll fuckin’ show ‘em.’

I entered the cage, crouching down low to squeeze through the doorway. This time I wouldn’t be making the same mistake as before. I sprang up into the cage and landed on both feet, steady as a rock. Then I held back patiently. I sized up my opponent then beckoned him towards me.

‘Come on, pretty boy. Come and get me,’ I yelled at him. ‘Here boy, here boy, heeere boy.’

He didn’t budge. He wanted me to go to him. To steam in blindly like I’d done at the opening of our last bout.

‘Come to me, gringo,’ he screamed. His eyes bored holes in me from twenty feet away.

‘Tu puto madre.’

That means ‘motherfucker’ and, as you know, no-one insults my mum and gets away with it.

But then I surprised him by squatting down and resting my
fists on the wooden floor for balance. He looked confused. I put up one hand and started beckoning him with my finger again. The crowd were confused and went completely quiet.

‘Kill the crazy British motherfucker,’ said one voice.

‘Go get him!’

Finally my flashy opponent fell for the bait and started heading for me. I stayed in that squatting position until he got really close. Then I jumped up and threw a punch right under him. The sheer force of my body movement guaranteed it was a sledgehammer.

He wobbled, almost lost his footing and crashed past me right into the mesh. He quickly tried to turn and swing at me but completely missed. I was as steady as a rock and then started moving around him Ali-style as he leaned against the mesh trying to recover his composure. His face was black with fury, but there was an air of confusion about him, too. Then he came at me, wildly throwing punches into thin air. I caught him in the neck with a sharp snap which just missed his Adam’s apple, followed by a swift left that smashed into his cheek with an almighty crack. He pulled back away from me to give himself a moment to reform.

‘Come on, little girl. Come to daddy,’ I goaded with a sly smile, beckoning him with my finger yet again. ‘Come to daddy.’ I’d insulted his macho pride and he couldn’t handle it. That’s when he totally lost it and came charging back towards me. I was on top, no doubt about it. I caught him with a flurry of uppercuts to the face and forehead: bang, bang, bang. He reeled backwards before he could even throw a punch. The crowd still didn’t get it. But then they did have a lot of dough riding on my opponent.

‘Kill him!’

‘Put that asshole outta his misery.’

The shouts from the crowd encouraged a red mist to descend in front of my eyes. I was on a roll of vengeance but it wasn’t really this fighter I was after. I paused for a moment and he caught me with a decent right-hander to my face. I jerked back in response. He then got me with a strong flurry of stinging punches. They were good-quality stabs that wiped out my surge of confidence.

I knew I had to become even stronger. How dare he try to get back into the fight? I had to make him pay. So I moved in for a full-scale attack, headbutting him twice and then hitting him with a flurry of punches to his body. He legs were buckling so I pulled him towards me and caught him with a steamroller left to the back of his neck. At least two more bone-crunching headbutts followed in quick succession. Then I caught him with both fists, one after the other, snap, snap. He fell backwards and crashed low against the wire mesh wall of the cage. Then I laid in with a high left-sided kick to the head. My blind rage was in overdrive. I was like a runaway tank, ripping up all in my path. Some people in the audience were screaming for me to stop but I didn’t care.

Then my opponent began struggling to his feet once again. Seeing him wobbling on his pins helped me regain some composure and, blinking, I felt my sanity return. I caught him with two huge sledgehammer knocks to the body and face. His legs shook like jelly again and he crashed to the floor. I looked across at Bill and Kenny and grinned, exposing my black gumshield. They looked far from happy.

Truth is I had no real truck with this other fighter. I wanted
to teach those two greedy bastards the biggest lesson of their scumbag lives. My primary aim had always been to hit Bill and Kenny where it would hurt them most – in their wallets.

With my opponent half kneeling in front of me, I sent in a flurry of vicious kicks that hit their target with crunching efficiency. He crumpled to the floor. I looked down at him. He was clearly out cold. Then I leaned down and put my hand in his mouth and tried to pull him up by the teeth. He was about as useful as a sack of dead squirrels. So I turned and looked into the crowd. They’d switched sides and were cheering their socks off for me. It was pretty decent considering I’d just cost them a bundle. And it was a magical feeling, I can tell you. I bowed to the audience just as a water bottle was thrown into the cage. It was all over. His team had thrown in the towel.

But I had just one more bit of business to attend to.

The two English minders snapped open the bolt of the door to the cage and I scrambled out. My opponent was still out cold and two men, one of whom looked like a doctor, were leaning over him. I was still buzzing with pent-up energy as I walked through the cheering crowds towards the car park where the limo was waiting. I’d proved myself right and had shown a lot of people they were wrong to take me for a fool.

Bill and Kenny were leaning against the limo with serious expressions on their faces as I arrived. ‘Well done,’ both of them said quickly at exactly the same time.

‘Where’s my dough?’ I snapped at them, enjoying every minute of their obvious discomfort.

‘It’s in the motor,’ said Kenny, whose ever-present smile had finally been wiped from his face.

I clambered into the stretch with Bill, Kenny and the two English minders. As we drove to the airport you could have heard a pin drop, the silence was so overwhelming.

After a couple of minutes, Kenny handed me an envelope. I looked up and caught Bill’s expression. He looked terrible. ‘Thanks,’ I said. I didn’t bother counting the money at the time but it turned out to contain $50,000 – the £32,000 fee I’d been promised, in dollars. Neither Bill nor Kenny said another word on the journey along the Vegas strip, not even when a hooker in a white leather mini-skirt tried to lean into our limo and offer her services at a red light. Then Kenny pulled a bottle of Bourbon out of the minibar between the seats. He poured out three glasses and handed me one. ‘No thanks,’ I said merrily. ‘I hate the stuff.’ Kenny looked at Bill, sighed, and at that moment they at last knew they’d been had.