Page 82 of Mean Machine

Brooklyn loosened his neck muscles, but the truth was, he’d never felt better in his skin. He’d woken up without any pain, tightness, or even sore spots, which was a miracle. Joseph helped him out of the robe and handed it back down to a different crew member, then stood in Brooklyn’s corner, a silent, reliable presence.

The hall grew dark again, and anticipation rose for a long time—likely only ten seconds, but the dramatic pause ramped up the energy. Then Thorne’s trademark air siren howl, with strobes and lights racing around the auditorium, clockwise, counter-clockwise, like the searching fingers of air defences in a war flick.

The rap music started up, and from the tunnel emerged Dragan Thorne, uncharacteristically dressed in a black robe to Brooklyn’s white and red. Brooklyn assumed that was because of the greater contrast—simply more drama. Before and after him came a bunch of military-looking guys in full kit, black clothes and body armour, pointing what Brooklyn hoped were fake rifles at the crowd as they stalked with Thorne towards the ring, like he was a tremendously important package to be delivered. The rap song therefore was full of law-enforcement stuff—“kicking down your door like SWAT” was one line, and Brooklyn was both impressed and irritated that Thorne kept working the convict angle.

The crowd seemed to love it, though, while Brooklyn forced himself to stand calmly under the musical and visual onslaught, bouncing a little, not openly disrespectful, but also not intimidated. None of the theatrics compared with one of Thorne’s better punches.

Joseph leaned in towards Brooklyn. “SWAT? Is he so scared of you that he needs an escort?”

Brooklyn grinned back at him. “If he isn’t now, he will be after the first round.”

Joseph nodded, and in a show of being at ease in front of these twenty thousand people and God knew how many million on the telly, rolled back onto his heels and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Thorne entered the ring and gave some kind of salute to his SWAT crew, while his normal team gathered around in his corner. When they stripped his robe off him, the black trunks were trimmed in the American flag. The announcer ran through his stats, making a major point of Thorne being the unified title holder, and his long illustrious career. Thorne smiled and waved at his fans, looking relaxed and, if that was possible, happy.

The ref called them to the middle of the ring, and they both nodded at the usual “clean fight and defend yourself at all times” speech. Brooklyn tapped Thorne’s gloves before Thorne moved, and the fight was on.

Thorne’s jovial smiles for the camera had slipped off so completely that he seemed a different man. Now his attention was solely on Brooklyn, and he, likewise, became Brooklyn’s whole world, every step he took, the distance between them, any angle that could be exploited. Thorne’s face was unreadable, so any clues would have to come from his movements.

The last time, Brooklyn had attempted to grind Thorne down over the full twelve rounds and almost succeeded—but if he didn’t manage a knockout or a TKO, Thorne could win on points again, and that wasn’t an option. Joseph had helped him reconfigure his style. He’d be trying to demolish Thorne with a lot of punching, generally a much more offensive style that was more natural to him, anyway. It would use his superior ability to move to work the man from all angles, ideally without getting run over by the bigger, heavier, and arguably stronger man.

They exchanged a few jabs, and Thorne switched to southpaw stance to adapt to Brooklyn, which suited Brooklyn fine. He had more experience fighting orthodox fighters, but Joseph had drilled him for this, knowing Thorne was by all accounts almost perfectly ambidextrous. The first round, they circled each other, just trading jabs, testing distance and movement, reading each other both physically and mentally.

Thorne was completely focused, responded immediately and well to what Brooklyn did, which was test him. They both took some solid punches, and Brooklyn felt this round was probably going to be even on points. So far, so good. The bell sounded and Brooklyn returned to his corner, where Joseph took his gumshield and gave him water. “Timing and distance look good, but you have to work harder to get your punches in.”

Brooklyn nodded, took more water. “I’m ready for this.”

“If not you, nobody is.” Joseph stared at him with narrowed eyes. “He’s past his peak, Brook, and he knows it.”

They’d talked about that a lot—how Thorne had peaked in the fight against Darius Smith, had defended a high plateau for eight years, which in itself was rare in boxing, but he wasn’t developing from there, and he wasn’t as strong as he’d been. While, if he believed Joseph, Brooklyn was just about to reach his peak—with “headroom to spare.”

The bell sounded and Brooklyn was on his feet and advanced towards Thorne. He’d intended to be more aggressive, but that was clearly Thorne’s game plan as well, so Brooklyn ended up ducking and weaving and evading some truly tremendous shots that had the audience “ohhhh” and “ahhhh.” He had to block a couple and responded with a few hard shots to the body, but didn’t manage to force Thorne on the defensive.

The man was clearly aiming for a KO in this round or maybe next, but Brooklyn remained calm, all senses wide-open, all awareness trained on Thorne, the flashing narrowed eyes, the sound of his breath, the way he displaced air between them. Thankfully, Brooklyn could rely on his drills—seemed the Destroyer hadn’t added any new tricks to his toolkit, no nasty surprises. That said, his rare combinations were well executed, and the jab alone could break a man down. Brooklyn let Thorne punch and focused on being nowhere near where those fists landed.

Joseph pulled the gumshield from his mouth and gave him water, while somebody wiped Brooklyn’s neck with a towel. “So, what are you waiting for?”

“He’ll get tired.”

Joseph looked sceptical. “Nobody gets paid extra if you go the distance. Dish out some punishment.”

Punishment was one of those boxing words that could feel painfully literal. Brooklyn nodded. “More pressure.”

“I want to feel it crackle, Brook. Stop treating him with kid gloves.”

“You got it.” Brooklyn took another mouthful of water, Joseph shoved the gumshield back into his mouth, and Brooklyn bounced off the stool. When he approached the middle of the ring, he thought he saw Thorne hesitate—maybe rethink his approach of pushing for the KO, so Brooklyn went right inside with a powerful combination, hard, vicious punches to the body and then an uppercut that more than just grazed Thorne.

Thorne looked surprised, staggered backward, and the heat in the arena rose. Brooklyn followed, kept pushing, though Thorne seemed more unsettled and defensive than hurt or dazed. And while he clamped up, he couldn’t protect all of himself with gloves and elbows, so Brooklyn kept punching, shot after shot, like pummelling a bag. Thorne clinched, suddenly a tremendous weight on Brooklyn’s shoulders, leaning on him, and the ref separated them, but not before they’d exchanged short punches into each other’s sides.

Brooklyn assumed he’d won this round, but the previous one had been Thorne’s, and the first one likely had seen neither of them gain an advantage.

Joseph seemed a lot happier when Brooklyn returned to his stool. “Even more pressure, but that’s the good stuff.”

Fourth round went similarly—Brooklyn had the initiative now, and more than once Thorne knew nothing better to do than lean on him, no doubt to tire out Brooklyn’s legs, but Brooklyn broke off the contact, was about to complain to the ref about the constant holding, when Thorne clipped him on the jaw. Brooklyn immediately felt another spike of adrenaline, and instead of protecting himself or even assessing the damage, lashed out, raining blows on Thorne’s face and gloves, and there was the hit he’d been going for—in retaliation, his fist hit Thorne high on the ridge of the right eye, opening a cut, with bright red blood mixing with sweat and streaming down the side of his face.

Back in the corner, Joseph gave Brooklyn a huge grin. “If you increase the pressure more, Thorne turns into a diamond. Keep at it.”

Brooklyn tested his jaw, but nothing seemed out of place or damaged—only swelling, but nothing a bag of frozen peas and a couple cold beers wouldn’t make a whole lot better.

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