No Time Outs

This mood of the crowd at this fight was worse than anything Tyler had ever seen. This crowd was polarized and angry. He stood at the exit and surveyed the crowd and commotion. His assistant, Tank walked up and stood next to him. Tank was a huge man dwarfing the big man Tyler. Tyler looked up to Tank and told him, “It could get ugly tonight.” Tank returned the look and smiled. He cheerfully said “I hope so.” Tyler shook his head, smiled, and looked toward the center of the huge stadium. At that moment, the Champion, Imelda Tatiana came down the ramp with a huge amount of fan fair. There were ten beautiful women surrounding her. The guards were known as her Luscious Legion. The women wore golden armor with extenuated breast plates and Centurion Helmets with tall red brushes reaching upward. Ahead of Tatiana and her Luscious Legion, were young girls throwing rose peddles on the floor so that she would not have to step on the mortal path in front of her. Tatiana cheerfully and confidently waved to her fans and smiled broadly as she passed. The crowd was close to evenly divided between fans and haters. Many of them greeted her with their screams and shouts. One man screamed, “I love you!” Another man yelled, “We love you!” A group of young women cried out, “We wanna be like you! We love you!” One man shouted, “You cheater!” Another man , “Die bitch!” Tatiana was known by many names but her favorites were “cripple-her” and “junkyard-mean.” She was aggressive, well trained, in fighting shape, and mean. A deadly combination to any challenger. As she climbed in the ring, her challenger, Dominique Noel started down the ramp to the ring. Her fans screamed support for her soon to be fought battle. Screams of adoration and encouragement abounded. One woman cried out, “You can do it!” A man screamed, “We’re counting on you!” Point to the challenger, one Tatiana fan bellowed, “And now, you gonna die!” The fans rooting for Tatiana and the fans rooting for Noel didn’t root for the same reason. Noel fans hated Tatiana, where Tatiana fans more pitted her than hated her. They viewed Noel much the way some Roman spectators may have seen the Jews led into the arena for slaughter. They believed that Tatiana would probably really hurt Noel and in a sad sort of way, they felt sorry for her. Even though Noel was one of the best fighters in the world. Noel had an impressive record of 15 and 4. 12 of her victories were by knock out. She had trained hard for this fight as she always did. She was confident, fit, and ready to fight. When Noel entered the ring, the fans again went nuts. The shouts of adoration for Noel were loud and long. She turned around and blew kisses at her fans and they rose in their seats and screamed even louder. What a display of fan worship. They really loved her and she always said, “I fight for the people who love me.” As the ref called them to the center of the ring, Noel moved with confidence and poise. Like a cat just let out from a cage and never taking her eyes off her prey, Tatiana moved toward Noel. As Tyler watched the scene he was reminded of a cat stalking a mouse. He shook his head as he knew the outcome of this fight and it wouldn’t be pretty — for Noel.