Page 77 of Punchline
Oh bullshit, I wasn’t going to thank him for that.
“Too bad you had to leave before the main event,” he went on. “Barovsky took it on decision, but Tachiyama put up a hell of a fight. Not enough striking experience, though. Still, I knew it would be a good one for us, lots of great clips to put up.” He looked straight at me, his forcibly light demeanor melting into seriousness. “And you know the clip that fucking trended on every media source that night?Yourfight, Radovitz. Your fucking two-punch wonder of a fight that ended with my guy knocked on his ass and you being escorted out in cuffs. You’re a goddamnjiu jitsuguy, not a fucking boxer, and you knocked out a man with two inches on you like it was nothing.”
“He shouldn’t have touched my boyfriend,” I said.
Dimon snorted. “Right, yourboyfriend.God damn, the first fighter in two years to make us trend for more than twenty-four hours and he’s got a boyfriend. Not just us!” he added, turning his phone toward me. The EFC was at the top of the list, then there was political bullshit, then?—
“Bushi Fighting Federation… Mordoboy… ” The biggest players out of Japan and Russia, respectively. “Why?”
“Goddamn mock brackets with you and their top-tier fighters,” Dimon said. “Even your last video has tens of thousands more views over the past few days.”
What? “The IDCC one?”
“That’s the one.” He looked at me like he was staring at a particularly juicy piece of steak. “Everybody wants to watch you fight right now, Radovitz. Without even trying, you’re topping every chart and creating the kind of buzz I want for the EFC.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “That’s not happening.”
Dimon was silent for a second. “You know,” he said at last, “I wasn’t going to drop the charges at first.”
“Your guystartedit, and he?—”
“My guy was doing his job, wasn’t his fault he couldn’t see the cast under the jacket. It was just a regrettable misunderstanding.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “And so was punching your guy until he let go.”
“I think a judge mighta seen it a different way.”
“What are you trying to say?” I snapped.
Dimon leaned in. “I’m saying that your fucking fight was trending before the main event even happened, Radovitz. I’m saying you pushed my top-tier fighters to ‘mention’ status with two fucking punches. But you also got the EFC trending fast, so I let the charges drop as a courtesy for that.” He gave me a half smile as he twirled a finger in a circle. “And then it just kept going. Jake, look, I’m going to give it to you straight. You’re having a moment. There’s no telling how long it’ll last, but I want in on it. I want you fighting for me.”
“Absolutely not.” I didn’t even have to think about it.
“You’re sore about some stuff, I get that.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think you understand just how sore I am. Your policies are hurting your fighters—do you get that? You were going to saddle Carson with over fifty grand of debt for something that wasn’t even his fault, and?—”
“Right,” Dimon interjected. “That wasyourfault, wasn’t it Jake?”
Thus prompted, my mind wound back to that moment as if it were happening right now. The grab, the lift, the spike—then the limpness, the seizure, the way Carsonwouldn’t wake up. I’d spent the next two weeks eating next to nothing and living in the dark in my apartment until my sister finally forced me to get help. I was in a better place now, I had guardrails and a great therapist and people who could help me with my shit, but the last thing I needed was to be reminded of one of the worst times in my life by this cretin.
“Get out,” I said through gritted teeth. “Get the fuck out, you?—”
“I’ll include a healthcare stipend for my fighters with the next contract negotiation.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
He shrugged. “Vegas is getting to be a tough crowd. Not as easy to fill seats as it was a year ago, and that makes my people nervous. They start to wonder if they’re better off finding a different audience, despite the fact that nobody gets media coverage like we do. It’s more expensive to live here, too, and I see that. So. A healthcare stipend, and guaranteed coverage for any incidents that happen outside the ring while they’re under contract.”
I was stunned. This was… “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you don’t need my money,” he replied with surprising honesty. “I looked into you when I decided to offer you a contract, Jake. You come from money—not a ton, but decent—and you have no debt. You donate to a dozen fucking charities every month. You work for peanuts here because you don’t need to be paid well to survive. So how else can I convince you to work with me?”
He reached into the alligator-hide bag at his feet—dyed yellow, of course, because classy was dead—and tossed a folder onto the table. “It’s all in there. A two-year contract with a shot at the title fight if you win two, plus the usualendorsement deals,plusthe healthcare upgrade. Get an agent to look over it, they’ll tell you it’s legit.”
You… what…
“You’ve been trending for forty-eight hours,” Dimon said, getting to his feet and straightening his jacket. “So I’ll give you that long to sign. If you say no after that, we’re done. No hard feelings, but this is your shot to do some real good, Jake.”
