My first 5 rounds

"Touch gloves and go to your corner."

Me and Nicoli touch gloves, and I make the endless drift to my corner. My mouth is dry and my body is sweaty; there's maybe 20 people in the entire building including our cornermen, but it might as well be MSG for as much as my heart is racing. The bell rings, and I methodically shuffle forward: it's the start of my first amateur fight.

Nicoli and I cut our teeth at the same school under the same instructor. We had similar builds (lanky but firm) and had very similar fighting styles (methodical point sparring that took advantage of our natural flexibility); when I was told my first fight would be against him, I immediately considered the fact that he had more formal training than me, was a higher rank than me, and was at least as fit and powerful as me if not more so. The only advantage I could see was that I had a bit more experience moving my body in all the directions it would need to go for a kickboxing match.

We met at Jefferson Tae Kwon Do academy, a USTF organization in which all strikes must be above the waist. Our instructor was a former cage fighter who shifted from pro fighting to teaching the offspring of soccer moms; though more profitable in the long run, I think part of him missed the cut-throat, intense nature of mma and kickboxing, because he offered to train any students, on his own time, for a match at the local fight night. I was immediately interested, and found that the training felt more natural than TKD training, perhaps due to the fact that I spent 6 months obsessing over and practicing from a savate (french kickboxing that allows leg kicks) manual before joining the school in addition to keeping up with it after joining. Nicoli did not have this advantage, and I knew if I were to win, it would have to be due to that.

This isn't bloated, dick stroking, faux kung-fu ego speech; I had a specific plan, I would kick him in the thigh, hard and often, because such strikes were much more natural to me than him. Nicoli had spent a grand total of 3 weeks training with leg strikes both legal and a focus of his sparring, whereas I had spent a year and a half. It was a sound plan with one caveat: distance.

The standard length of the longest distance between two fighters in a standard kickboxing ring is 28.28 feet (20 feet sides, thank you Pythagoras.) I had to close that distance and get within a foot or so of him to be able to strike with frequent and strong leg or head kicks; he only needed to be within 3 or so to pick my stomach apart (Though the difference in distance is less than 2 feet, the difference in stance covers the rest.) This was an immediate disadvantage, and I assumed the only way to overcome it would be to suck it up and hope that the frequent gut shots didn't stop me from closing the distance.

^my guard is down, for shame

It transpired, however, that I would close the difference rather quickly; I later found out that Nicoli was planning to sacrifice the first round or so in order to wear me out and knock me out in the later rounds. He didn't count on me dismantling his base, and by the start of the second round, I could tell he was having a problem moving. He fought erratically and defensively while I kept my composure and chopped at him as if he were a tree- I was winning.

Until the third round.

Ohhhh boy, the third round. It seems that our friend Nicoli got sick of limping, because as soon as I tried to close the distance at the start of the third, his toes flied at an upward angle juuuuust past my chin. Suddenly he switched the pace; all I could hope was that he wore himself out. For the next two rounds, I played a defensive game and was kicked in the head twice, along with innumerable body shots. One thing I noticed, however, is that they lacked their usual power; whether it was because of fatigue or soreness, I could not tell, but I suspect it was both.

The fifth round begins, and were both exhausted and desperate. Nicoli has definitely gotten low on gas, but I had as well. I kept with the original strategy, but without the same oomph. It was probably the most boring and uneventful round I've ever competed in, and there wasn't a decisive victor, as I would find out when the scores came back.

"Our first judge gives it to [deadname], by one point. Our second judge gives it to Nicoli, by one point. Our third judge gives it tooo our winner, by split decision, [DEADNAME]!"

I had won. Beaten, bloody, and exhausted, I raised my arms and hugged my opponent. We'd see each other again, spar again, discuss the fight; I certainly didn't view him as anything except for a very dangerous and competent opponent who was more than capable of getting a win on me. But for one night, I was the better fighter.