You've got plenty of work to do, with a fight in two weeks, so there's no time to waste. You spend the majority of your training focusing on
blocking and guarding. The gloves of the times are horse hair leather, thin, doing little more than protecting the knuckles and wrist. Not too good for actually defending against punches. So instead, you practice the
cross-arm block.The best part of this defensive manoeuvre, is that it protects from straight punches, whilst keeping you set to throw back hard hooks to your opponent from weird angles. Defense begetting offence.
"Alright, kid, I've gotta few opponents lined up, right now the two baddest sons o' bitches I could find at short notice, are
Tony "Bonecrusher" Bernard and
Reg "The Ironman" Tills.Just those names are enough to give you pause. Thinking, you mentally review what you know of these two.
- VERY heavy slugger, like you. Been going on a 10 fight KO streak.
- Never very defensively sound in any of the fights of his you've seen, but he's so aggressive and constantly throwing punches that it hardly ever matters.
- Has NEVER tasted the canvas. Never knocked down, never even close to being knocked out.
- His bid for the recent World Heavyweight championship, where he was brutally outpointed by the champ, left Reg bleeding and busted up. None of this stopped The Ironman from moving forward, the bastard was claimed to have been smiling while taking the beating of a lifetime. Reg proceeded to win by 8th round knockout in his next fight, the man clearly hasn't lost a step.
"So, who do you think you can whup?"
A. Bonecrusher
B. The Ironman"Alright, I'm still not keen on taking on the baddest of the bad so soon, kid, but at least nobody can say yer yello'. While I set this up, what'll you be doing?"
A. Spreading as much word around about the fight as possible, get the people excited. The keener they are, the more money you make, and the better opportunities you get down the line.
B. Start showing up to where your opponent is, and constantly try to upstage and invade his personal life. Mentally unnerve him.
C. Hire a spy to go check out how your opponent is training, see if you can get anything useful.