Long Form Roleplayers

PLEASE NOTE - THIS IS THE THIRD PART OF A MULTI-PART SERIES.

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START AT ROUND 1

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02:42 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: My hot breath on your heaving chest. That full five inches shorter than you coming in handy to lower my center of gravity and, inside your clinch, lowering my head down to your beautifully intoxicating chest. Breathing in your feminine essence, heaving out my masculine grunts. I can almost imagine hearing your heartbeat thumping for me in this moment. But just in this moment. You've done this 39 times already, and plan to do it countless times more. I know this is not your first rodeo, and I suspect it won't be your last. I also know that, before everything you've been taught, you were born human, and a woman. With human needs, and human weaknesses.
02:42 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Separating our hot, sweaty bodies just enough to drill my fist deep into your core, inviting you to fold into me, hoping to knock you down off that 6'2", 39 win, Instagram famous pedestal, and bring you down to my level. Down to the level of just one man, and just one woman. Not just trying to penetrate you, and show you who I am, but to break down those walls keeping us apart. So you can see me, and I can see you. And we can see how we feel about that. Your moan as I break down your walls almost to crumbling, nearly opening the door to your feminine core, everything that makes your body a woman's body, feels different. Something about all of this feels different. I've been in this game a long, long time, and this feels different. You've had opportunities to kick me away, to separate us. And yet... we're still here. Close. Like maybe you feel like it's different too.
02:43 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: And something about my behavior tonight is different too. Even I can feel it. Is it just you, affecting me? Is this your power over your opponents? Your power over men? It's not that my killer instinct is gone, far from it. Maybe it's that my focus has changed. I don't have anything to prove to anyone anymore. I'm already compared to some of the greatest fighters of all time. My legacy is set in stone. What matters now, what's mattered for months, maybe even years, is connecting with my partners. Sharing experiences.
02:43 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: For better or worse, I'm in the enviable position of not NEEDING to win anymore. My retirement is set, my foundation is funded. The chance to connect with an incredible beast of a woman at this stage of my life in the arena I love is just too great not to risk it. Will you still respect me if I don't crush you? Did you come here to get crushed? If I smash you into the ground, will you take all that independent spirit and turn it against me in frustration? Or, if I have too much fun with you and DON'T crush you, will the claws come out because you think I'm not taking you seriously?
02:43 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: You're a STRIKER. Everyone knows you're a striker. Your game is primarily played from a distance, never letting anyone in. Never letting anyone get close. Everything I've ever read, seen, or known about you, is that you're an impenetrable wall who strikes out to keep everyone away. An ice queen, an untamable beast, living wild, and free. And yet, all those words, all those abstract concepts and social constructs are melting in front of my eyes, and in my hands, all I see, all I feel, is a woman. I just want to be here with... you. And guide you to let all that go. So we can be just... you and me. Folded down off that pedestal, to see me man to woman, eye to eye. Maybe not forever, but at least... for right now. Or maybe forever?
02:43 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: It's not about owning you. It's never been about owning you. It's about giving you the opportunity to be owned. Do I even want a woman who's fought, beaten, and left 39 other men and women, and plans to fight, beat, and leave countless more? Is there even a possibility of compatibility? If we found each other in some club, would we even talk? Or would we remain separate, caught up in our own little champion level worlds?
02:43 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I don't TAKE ownership, I OFFER ownership. I want - I NEED - to show you WHY I'm the Master of this cage. In this moment, I have something to prove. And it's NOT just that I can beat you. Because I KNOW I can beat you. I beat EVERYONE. This ring is MY house, and you are MY honored guest. And in my house, I have power. I'm the Master, and you are my guest. In this house, the fight is already won. In this moment, I need to show you MY kind of power. The power to dominate, AND keep you safe.
02:44 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I want to break you down, so we can be together. But I need to do it my way. I wind up a second uppercut to break down what's left keeping you from me, but you pull me into you and toss me left, my second fist glancing harmlessly off your left obliques. You swing me back to your right..."HNNNNGHHH"... your big knee SLAMMING into my side, wincing me over that knee in pain. You launch a HUGE right knee directly into my abdomen above my belly button... "HOOOOFFFFF"... oh god, **that power**. Fuck, those legs of yours, inside your clinch... POWER. The power to devastate, to ruin. Folding ME into YOUR power...
02:44 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: "ULLLLFFFFFF" OH GOD... another knee lifting me off the canvas on my toes, ripping into my muscular abdominals. I've taken plenty of knees in my time, but your leverage, your strength, your sheer POWER... I'm fighting to breathe. In close to you, and fighting to breathe. I can't take another one. You need to stop. I need to stop. This needs to stop. I can't throw any more. You've stopped me. I have to do something to make this pain stop.
02:45 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I reach up and fish through your clinch up with both hands, and clamp down on your biceps, pulling them down to the canvas. God damn you have big, firm biceps. I fucking adore big biceps on a woman. Straighten my back the best I can, my aching core screaming in agony. The only thing worse than straightening that core right now though, would be to take another knee. I push through the agony, barely breathing. Hoping my muscles will get done what my lungs can't. I step forward, into you. My hips, pressed into yours. My head, grinding up into your chin. Gripping your biceps, using your own muscles to pull me into you. My hips against your hips. Dancing. My hips on yours, my bulge pressed into your skirt. I know you feel me.
02:45 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: And then I do something very... not Muay Thai like. I slip my right hand off your big left bicep, jam it into your armpit, and shove off you just enough to make some space, stepping my right foot back. I leave your left hand gripping me, wrapped around the back of my head, while I'm pulling down your right arm with my left hand on your beautiful bicep, and slip my right glove under your left armpit. Sliding my leathery right palm along your powerful upper back, lifting my elbow under your arm pit to tip your upper body counter clockwise like a big wheel, to give me just a little more leverage. I swing my right hip 180 degrees sliding along the front of your trunks, until my ass cheeks are on either side of your right thigh. Sitting on your thigh. For right now at least, you're the big spoon.
02:45 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: There are many, many legal ways to break a clinch in an official Muay Thai fight. And several illegal ways. One of the illegal ways to break a Muay Thai clinch, is a BJJ hip throw, a judo O-Goshi. For a fighter who primarily relies on your Muay Thai training, I know a hip throw is NOT something you train on the regular. Let alone defending it. It's such a basic, Level 1 move that you probably haven't trained it in ten years. It's also extraordinarily effective in very specific situations. Like this one. Gripping your back firmly as I crank your left elbow to the sky, pulling down on your right arm to complete the circular counterclockwise rotation of your torso, I lean forward, to pick you up onto my right hip, and throw you to the ground.
02:45 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Normally when I perform this throw in competition, I don't really care if you get hurt or not. So what I normally do is, after I've tossed my opponent over my hip, I throw my own feet off the ground and fly WITH you, and land ON YOUR CHEST. I've broken more than my fair share of ribs landing my entire body weight on other people with these brutal judo throws. But you... I can't risk breaking you like that. A man simply doesn't get an infinite number of chances to play with a woman like you, and breaking you is no longer on my agenda.
02:45 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: So in this case, I do what I do with my training partners, and as your body is lifting over my hip, I grab your back tight and press my feet into the canvas, to slow down the throw, and guide you - not quite gently, but not... crushingly - to the canvas. I choose not to crush your ribs, and crush you. I have the power to crush you in this moment, with overwhelming power, and I choose not to use it. In a way, showing you that I am STILL IN CONTROL. And I can CONTROL YOU, and STILL KEEP YOU SAFE.
02:45 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: It's a power move. But not just any kind of power. It's the power to crush, that I choose not to wield. I never know with a woman how you'll process moments like these. Will you consider it... toxically masculine? Patriarchal? Pleasantly parental? Patronizing? The act of an honorable sportsman? The act of a weak man, too weak to get the job done, too weak to kill? Or... will you see it the way I intend it, the act of one lover taking care of the other, and not abusing these rare moments of complete, one sided power. However you see it will say as much about you as it says about me. Regardless, it's a pivotal move in a fight full of pivotal moves.
02:46 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: And instead of throwing my body into the air to crush your ribs and begin dominating you on the ground, I guide you to the canvas almost... lovingly. And then I take one more step to keep you safe, and choose NOT to drive my knee over your ribs and mount you. Instead, I do something the critics will literally laugh about every time they watch the replays. I lower my right knee into the right side of your ribs, PACK one little right jab into your right cheek, and then... shove you away with my knee, and back off. I toss you to the canvas, punch you in the head, and then I back off. I don't want to crush you. I want to show you the power I have, and I want to keep playing with you. And see how you react, and see your power too. Fighting for breath as the ache in my abdomen catches up to me, and I back away. Your move, kitten. The world champion kept you safe. Will you hate it, or love it? And what will you do now? [G10/15]

20:31 Joanna_Louvier: WHAMM!! I land that third right knee in a string of brutal knees, trying to break you down and force you to stop pounding my guts with those punishing right uppercuts. I can feel each satisfying smack of every impact, and I know I’m leaving massive welts on your body with these blows. I can feel the power being sapped from you with each successive strike. So why aren’t you flagging? Why are you still able to stand? I’ve never faced anyone who could take three knees flush like that and continued to put up so much resistance. And then I remember. We’re in close. Very close… Your territory.
20:33 Joanna_Louvier: All the while, I’ve been picking up on some of your signals throughout this fight. There’s clearly some wheels turning in that punch-drunk skull of yours… wheels that have implications for you and me… for whatever *this* is, between us… for long after this fight ends. I can sense that you have *designs* on me, and it has little to do with whether you win or lose this fight. At this point, you’re playing a different game entirely.
20:34 Joanna_Louvier: My core is hurting. My body is exhausted. If you wind up another uppercut to my abs, I don’t know if I can take it, and I don’t have many more tricks up my sleeve. But you don’t. I feel those powerful arms tugging on me as you lay your rough hands over my biceps, using your relatively lower center of gravity to pull down on me… then, you totally take me by surprise, pressing yourself into me, almost flush against my chest, your bulge pressing into my hips… ooffff… the close contact causing my body to respond to yours, albeit just for a fraction of a second… your right arm under my left armpit, hooking around the left side of my back… I know what’s coming. My body tenses and I try to resist your throw, but at this point, it’s too late. It’s a little awkward, as we struggle for just a half second, my strength against your strength… your leverage and momentum again giving you the edge.
20:35 Joanna_Louvier: Then you turn your back to me, gripping and pulling on my right arm… I feel you slide your ass up against my right thigh… hmmm, nice and firm… and pretty soon I feel my feet leave the canvas as you twist counterclockwise, my right shoulder dipping, and in this moment, for the very first time in this fight, I feel that there is no part of my body, or yours, over which I have any control. It is an incredibly humbling and terrifying sensation. It almost feels like a car crash.
20:36 Joanna_Louvier: Time slows down as my brain tries to calculate when to brace my body for the moment of impact. But it’s pointless, because there is nothing I can do to alter my trajectory. I bite down hard on my mouthguard, tense my abs, my entire torso, knowing this could easily lead to a bad break. This might be it for this fight. Fuck, I should have listened to my coach. Don’t let him get in close. This is all my fault for thinking I could go toe to toe with you and maintain control. I could have played to my strengths, but I chose to divert from my fight plan. I’ve let my team down. My fans. My sponsors. My parents. Everyone who believed in me… Spiraling, not just mentally and emotionally, but physically—counterclockwise, from a height of six feet, into the filthy blood and soot spotted canvas, under the full crushing weight of the heavyweight MMA champion of the world. Fuck.
20:37 Joanna_Louvier: My back hits the hard but elastic surface of the canvas with an unforgiving SLAM that rings out in a deafening tone, echoing as my body bounces with the hard boards that support the material… I rush to try to bring my arms up to guard my face, expecting you to take the advantage, and that’s when I realize that first of all, you didn’t throw your full crushing weight on top of me, and second, you didn’t even attempt a full mount, even though it would have been easy to do so. My ribs are… not broken. Phew…
20:38 Joanna_Louvier: WHAP! Ah, there it is… fortunately, I was able to get control of my left arm fast enough to throw up a quick and somewhat sloppy block, causing your fist to slam my padded glove into my right cheek. But… your punch wasn’t even that hard. Almost as if it was just for show… And then, you do something that I am still struggling to process… you push me away, and then you… back off… what the fuck?
20:39 Joanna_Louvier: I watch you getting back to your feet, clearly still hurting from the pummeling I gave you in the clinch, and my reptile brain tells me not to look a gift horse in the mouth. You might not be feeling so generous in a few seconds. Maybe you broke something and are hurting so much right now that you couldn’t land on me with your full weight, you couldn’t crush me, couldn’t mount me, or ground and pound me... My knees have done this kind of damage before...
20:40 Joanna_Louvier: No, I see this “look” in your eyes, as you gaze back at me, almost like you’re looking for my reaction, as I roll back up to my hands and knees, then stand up… and it hits me. You… spared me. You showed mercy. Why? In the octagon, of all places, where mercy is the last thing that should be on either of our minds… This doesn’t make any goddamn sense. Unless…
20:41 Joanna_Louvier: My mind takes about 5 seconds to race through all the possible permutations to derive your motive. Could it be that you are relying on some misguided sense of Chivalry to create an excuse for yourself in case you lose, in order to protect your “fragile male ego” while at the same time “being the bigger person”? God, there is no concept in the history of humanity that I despise more than Chivalry. Is this some kind of “power move?” Could it be your growing “crush” on me is what kept you from literally crushing me just now? Is it that tired old trope of not being able to bring yourself to “mess up” my “pretty face”?
20:43 Joanna_Louvier: One thing is for certain… I’ve made it clear from the beginning that I intend to show no mercy to my opponent, and I expect none in return. And I can’t abide an opponent who is unwilling to go all out with me, for any reason… champion or no. It should go without saying that a woman who competes at my level as a professional fighter has no interest in being kept safe, especially by her opponent. In here, it is my job to protect myself. I am NOT YOURS to protect.
20:43 Joanna_Louvier: You had one job, Greg. To do everything within your power (and within the limits of the Unified MMA rules) to hurt, damage, incapacitate, injure me, just short of actually killing me, in order to win this match. And instead, you chose to show restraint at a point when you could have finished me. I have never been so deeply INSULTED by another fighter in my LIFE. I am fucking FURIOUS right now.
20:44 Joanna_Louvier: I am furious, but I can’t let it show… can’t let you know you’ve gotten in my head, even a little. But I can’t help it. “What the FUCK was that?” I snarl at you through my mouthguard… the first words I’ve spoken aloud to you so far tonight. I know it won’t change anything, and I don’t particularly care what your explicit answer is… I just want you to know my general sentiments before we move on…
20:45 Joanna_Louvier: Mercy is a luxury. It is something that only can be given by someone who is so secure in their power that they fear no reprisal from their enemy for making the choice to let them live. The fact that you showed it to me just now tells me that either you no longer care about winning this fight at all, you are unable to bring yourself to hurt me out of some misplaced sense of condescending patriarchal morality, or you are trying to send a message to me that you are so in control of this fight that you essentially are just toying with me now. But then… wasn’t I just going toe to toe with you? Fighting you on your terms, the way you want me to? Why was I doing that? Am I out of my mind?
20:46 Joanna_Louvier: I can’t avoid the conclusion that it’s hypocritical of me to expect you to take me seriously as an opponent when I let myself get lured into dancing with you up close like that. Maybe you’re right, maybe I’m not deserving of the belt… get your head back in the fight, huntress… enough “dancing,” enough “playing.” *Fight him.*
20:49 Joanna_Louvier: I get back up to my feet, back up to my loose orthodox kickboxing stance… my elbows tucked in at my sides, my feet a little more squared than in a boxing stance… I start bouncing my lead left leg on the canvas, staring you down, staring daggers at you… staring NUCLEAR MISSILES at you… and as I begin bouncing on my toes, I start stalking towards you, clearing all the mental debris from the wreckage of this match from my mind, in preparation for another inevitable clash… and as I close the distance with you, I intend to feint a jab, throw a lead left teep to your lower abs, follow with a jab to your chin to distract your guard, step out to my right with an overhand cross to your left eye, and then circle out to my right and prepare to defend against any retaliation from you. I’ve received your message, and I want to send you one in return. I want you to know… I am here for a FIGHT. [J11/15]

03:56 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I had to throw you. Years later when we are looking back together on tonight, I'm sure you and I will still be debating whose body would have broken first, mine from your knees or yours from my uppercuts. Like Rocky and Apollo. Reminscing on that one night, the night that changed everything. And I think we will both agree, we were both about to crack from one more blow, that never landed. A judo throw was the perfect way to end that stalemate without one of us down on our knees sucking wind. It had to be done.
03:56 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: What didn't have to be done, was saving you from a visit to the hospital. What absolutely did NOT have to be done, was to swat down at your gloved defense instead of mounting you. And to step away... frankly, I KNOW you think I deserve to get the shit kicked out of me after that. It's simply NOT what's done in a fight of this caliber, no matter who your opponent is. You must be feeling humiliated, furious, confused. I get all that.
03:56 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: You know what else you're feeling though? Intact. Sure, you might be FURIOUS at me, but you know what? I didn't break you. I had a chance to end your night and maybe even permanently injure you, and I didn't take it. Fearless... I have no fear. I'm not afraid of the consequences of my split second decision, I'll deal with the consequences as they come up. But merciless? What are we, without mercy? Is it possible to out-merciless someone? In that race to the bottom, there can only be losers, and in a profession like mine, mercy is often all that stands between literal life and death. Mercy, and grace, are what allow us to rise above our basest animal nature.
03:56 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: And as you climb to your feet, I see it in your eyes. FURY, at being shown mercy. Confusion, anger, frustration, loathing, at being shown... mercy. What a fascinating thing, to see such fury at being shown the one thing that kept you intact. Would you really rather be broken?
03:56 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Mercy is the most dominant trait, of the most dominant species on the planet. I showed you mercy, not because I'm weak, but because I'm STRONG. Because I KNOW I can take ANYTHING you throw at me, and STILL take more. I'm not the champion because I'm merciless. In my eyes, a human without mercy for another vulnerable creature, is WEAK. I'm the champion because I am capable of MERCY... AND YET I STILL FIND A WAY TO WIN.
03:56 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: If I'm going to beat you, I'm going to do it WITHOUT breaking you. I'm going to show you the mercy of letting you fight properly to the end of this battle, with all your faculties intact, until one of our bodies simply can't take any more and fails, not because you've lost heart at having been broken and have to speak out that you give up, or worse. If I'm going to beat you, I'm going to do it FAIR and SQUARE, fighter to fighter, not because I leveraged my superior position to break you. You can hate it all you want, but I'm going to give you the RESPECT of the sporting chance you deserve, to finish this fight without debilitating injuries.
03:56 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: More than all that... okay, I'm not perfect either. In fact, I'm being a little selfish. Frankly, the truth is... I want to see what you can do. Throughout this entire fight, you've impressed me at every step of the way. Nearly taking my head off with a spectacular counter. Kicking the crap out of me. Superb clinch work. Fists of IRON. You're... well you're ME, about 17 years ago, if I was a little taller, a little more flexible, and a little hotter. I see so much that's been impressing me during this whole fight, that I just HAVE to see more. You're the most challenging opponent I've faced in YEARS, and... frankly, I just don't want it to ever end.
03:56 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: So yeah, get FURIOUS all you want. Get to your feet, and let's see that FIRE BURN. THROW those missles from your eyes at me. LIGHT ME ON FIRE with your PASSION, your fists, and your feet, with everything your powerful body can generate. "What the FUCK was that?" you snarl, yeah, I heard it. I just smirk, and wink, and GROWL back.
03:56 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Every goddamn thing hurts. I don't even care. I'm in the octagon with the most spectacular creature under God's big blue sky doing the thing we love best, and I'm not stopping until you're out, or God himself calls me home.
03:56 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: And speaking of which... ahhh fuck, here comes the world's most pissed off fighter, probably the only true match for my skill, strength, speed, stamina and sheer BALLS that I've ever faced, that lead cobra's head leg bouncing, easing closer and ready to strike. This is gonna hurt. I don't even care. LET'S. FUCKING. GO.
03:57 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: We're at a distance now. You've got all your tools at this distance, and I ain't got shit. The perfect place for me to test myself against the world's best fighter who isn't ME, and see if I've got what it takes against you. Not to prove anything to you, just... to see what my body is capable of. KNOWING you're pulling all the stops now, and any hope of mercy or restraint, is likely long gone.
03:57 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Fists and feet start flying. I'm not just going to stand here taking it, the dance is over. This is WAR. My lips are swollen, I can barely see out of my right eye, my abs are on fire, my left leg bruise is darkening by the minute. I'm beat up, you're beat up, play time is over.
03:57 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: You feint that jab, but I'm already moving to my right, your left, and I am ready to bat it away but nothing's there. A quarter second too late I see your teep lining up, thought for sure you'd follow with a right. Dammit. I try to turn my hips to avoid the teep, but I'm far too slow, and your foot catches the upper waistband of my trunks with your toes, folding the lip back a bit as the ball of your foot digs in beside my bladder and shoves my right hip back, and my right foot back a half step with it, nearly dragging my trunks down with your foot.
03:59 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I swing a right hook, but you've got a SECOND jab lined up, and your fist meets my chin before mine reaches yours, with a SMACK throwing my head down... "MMMPHH".. and that beautiful follow up right hand SLAMS into my mostly intact left eye.... "MMMPMMMM"... immediately making it... less intact, as I can feel the soft tissue swelling around my orbit starting on THAT side too, and my vision blurs now as both sets of eyelids swell. Fuck, now I'm going to have TWO black eyes, like a damn raccoon. That's going to make for some beautiful publicity photos... for you.
03:59 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: You circle right... how are you still so fast? Those big damn beautiful legs of yours, that's how. Dancing away after your last punch dizzies me even more and also leaves the door open for me to chase you, I send a couple of my own. I might not be able to see details anymore, but I can see your sweaty, muscled body pulling back that overhand right that blackened my left eye, and turn a left foot to step towards you and swing a left hook under that right aimed at your ribs hoping to catch you before you can recoil it, just outside your right breast, hoping to give you a little bonus jostle as I hit your ribs.
03:59 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Then I crouch down with my right fist and elbow in tight to my right side, bring my right foot in to stomp onto the canvas, step in towards your right side AGAIN with my left foot, and swing an overhand right looking to thump HARD into your sternum looking to crack that adorable little bow and arrow symbol on your skin tight top in half with my big right fist. Guard up as I reset, trying to get in close again, stay in close again. Come ON Huntress, let's SEE WHAT YOU GOT. GIVE IT TO ME. ROAR. [G11/15]

00:45 Joanna_Louvier: There will always be fans, critics, haters… whatever you want to call them… who will try to argue that I don’t deserve the title, no matter how decisively I kick your ass all over this cage for the rest of this match. Because of what you “could have” done. And I, in my righteous indignation, could try to argue that your decision has effectively robbed me of any possibility of “victory” in the eyes of the public, before this match even ended. Because of course, as a woman, I always need to do a little more to “earn” that win. Of course. Honestly, I’m not entirely convinced you would have crushed me if you had tried… in any case, we’ll never know what you could have done, because you didn’t do it. And, who knows… maybe after the dust settles, maybe someday I will thank you for showing restraint… Stranger things have happened.
00:48 Joanna_Louvier: But you know what? I don’t care what the viewing public thinks, or what you could have done, or what you chose to do, or why. None of that matters *right now, in this moment.* What matters is that we are both still in this fight, and we still have over a minute left in Round 2. I might be a bit younger than you, but I’ve been at this long enough to know that anger is a fairly useless emotion in a fight. Being angry isn’t going to make me hit any harder, and it certainly isn’t going to help me fight smarter. So I just… let it go.
00:50 Joanna_Louvier: I am here now. In the present. No longer thinking about the past or the future. No longer concerned about opinions held by anyone not currently standing inside this cage. I’m not going to let it get to me. You fight the way you want to. I’ll stick to letting Joanna worry about Joanna. Because there is still time on that clock, and there is still you, and me, standing in this cage. And here I am, swinging at you again.
00:53 Joanna_Louvier: As I get into striking range, my plan goes into motion, my feint causing you to guard my nonexistent left, then look for my right hand… perfectly setting up my low teep, which does its job of stuffing your momentum, and as you try to force your way in with a right hook, my left smacks into your head, allowing me to step to the right and SLAM a heavy overhand right cross into your left eye… a Rube Goldberg machine of violence. Good luck keeping track of my location through those two rapidly swelling eye sockets…
00:56 Joanna_Louvier: You chase as I circle out and retract my right arm, and you manage to swing a left hook into my right upper ribcage, making a THUMP! right below my right breast. Even as lean as I am, your left hook creates a shockwave that ripples through my sports bra, creating a video clip that will no doubt be forever immortalized on the internet… but right now, I’m not concerned about all that. The impact stings, and I need to create distance. As your hook lands, I quickly launch another right cross at your unguarded left eye, more quickly and less heavily this time, before taking a full step back, creating distance and preventing you from getting into your effective range…
00:57 Joanna_Louvier: Of course, you anticipate my backward movement with your next move, now aggressively stepping closer with each step that I take back… so that big overhand right launches just as I am launching myself on the back foot a step, causing it to land on my bow and arrow symbol, albeit with substantially less force than if I hadn’t moved back so far on my long, strong legs…
01:01 Joanna_Louvier: I ride some of that residual power from your overhand right into a switch-stance movement, swinging my left leg back into “southpaw” and adjusting my guard, then bringing it forward again and chambering as you retract your big right hand, launching a massive, show-stopping left rear teep at your chest, looking to stamp another symbol of mine on you, and hopefully, ending that exchange at just the right distance, back in orthodox as my left foot comes back to the canvas. I won’t let your punches go unanswered, but… like hell am I getting lured into full on trading with you again. Plenty of arrows left in my quiver. No more fucking around. That belt is mine. [J12/15]

04:19 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: They say it's HOW you play that matters. They say sportsmanship matters. They say kindness matters. They say participation matters. They say courage matters. They say a lot of things matter, but what ends up being remembered, recognized, praised, celebrated... DEIFIED... what MATTERS, to the vast majority of humanity, AND to the history books, isn't HOW you play, it's WHO WINS. Nobody remembers the loser, no matter how great a 'sport' they were. That's the simple fact of the brutality of life, and the brutality of humanity. The ONLY thing that matters to the BILLIONS of people watching this fight, is who WINS.
04:19 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Fully 80% of the people tuning in to this fight aren't even paying attention to the action anymore, they're just getting rowdy with their buddies drinking beer saying they watched the fight. Everything that happens before that life altering decision at the END of this fight, will be debated in quickly forgotten dead end conversations from armchair fighters about what coulda shoulda woulda been, maybe drilled in self defense and martial arts classes all over the world from the breakdown of the championship fight, and all that will remain FOREVER is ONE NAME. Of those billions of people watching this, fewer than 20% will care how we get to the conclusion, and they'll quickly forget. Leaving one name. The vast majority will only remember ONE NAME. And that's the name of whoever WINS.
04:20 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Only the most die hard fight nerds will even care that I let you up, and they'll quickly forget. All that ultimately matters is these few moments in the vast expanse of time, just you and me. And in these moments, as my head is rocked by your beautiful jab to my jaw, and an even more beautiful overhand right to start my eye swelling, all I can think of is the same thing I've been thinking the whole time I've been in this fight with you. Get. In. Close.
04:20 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: So I launch some big muscle man blows aimed at the bony fortress of your chest, my left landing hard enough on your ribs to send a shockwave through you, but not strong enough to stop you from adding a little more hurt to my already hurt left eye, the THWACK of my glove on your ribs met with a SMACK of your right into my already injured left eye socket... "HUMMMMPH".. adding another watery pool welling up in that eye as it feels like I'm looking through wax paper on my left side, and I am struggling to focus on you with only my already injured right eye barely open now.
04:20 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: My big follow up right hand SLAPS into your chest as I look to collapse you to the floor THROUGH the symbolic crest you're wearing, but my heavy blow lands with not NEARLY the force I intended, only glancing off your sternum as you're already backing up to avoid it, and to make space yourself to work. HOW. FUCK you move fast. I wonder why that punch doesn't feel more satisfying, knowing at the end of the day the "how" doesn't really matter, as I didn't have any choice but to come after you, because that's just who I am...
04:20 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: My fist over extending me as you back up, my momentum charging into you AGAIN... overextended AGAIN... until WHHHOOOOMMM my body feels like I've just run into a brick wall chest first, as that incredibly timed, incredibly powerful left foot SLAMS into my sternum with several MULTIPLES the force of my fist landing on yours, not just knocking all the wind out of my chest with one tremendous "HHHOOOOFFFF" but also momentarily paralyzing me in place from the sheer battering ram POWER of your kick. My head jerks forward as the sweat off my hairy chest splatters in every direction out from around your foot, leaving a beautiful red foot shaped welt starting directly between my muscular pecs.
04:21 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: And in mere seconds, you've put me right where you want me. My momentum halted, my vision blurred, my big torso ROCKED. And here I am stunned and half blinded, standing facing the strongest, most powerful woman in the world, both of us all kinds of fired up, injured but not enough to stop either one of us completely. Every muscle in my body aching as I try to catch my breath after that soul crushing, heart crushing, chest crushing kick, forcing the air out of my lungs with a HISSSS .. HISSS... as I clench my teeth HARD around my mouthguard. Gritting my teeth, HARD through the pain, NO. You will NOT stop me, Huntress. You will KNOW why I am the champion. I WILL find a way.
04:21 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: My left eye is very, very angry, so I circle to your right. Elbows out front as I hunch over my aching chest. Only one minute to go. Leave it all in the octagon. I LAUNCH into you with what force I've got left, one big step towards you on my left, a SECOND step 45 degrees to the left looking to end up on your right side, and just start SENDING... a left jab looking to disrupt your guard, hoping to open a hole for a right cross to your chin, stepping down into a bit of a crouch with my eyes sweeping across your chest, stepping with my right foot across your body and hoping to drive a right hook into the left side of your ribs. [G12/15]

14:10 Joanna_Louvier: You have eaten everything I’ve sent you in this exchange so far, and you just keep coming. I know this is going to be a war of attrition. It may seem to the untrained eye that I am absolutely taking you apart… and don’t get me wrong, I am… but what you and I both know is that I have to be perfect in this last minute of Round 2 if I want to come out on top in this match. You bit on my feint, ate a front teep to your waistline, ate my formidable jab, then my cross to your eye, and you still kept coming. You almost caught me, and you managed to tag me back, twice. I can’t downplay the fact that both of your last two punches fucking hurt. But I’m still intact.
14:11 Joanna_Louvier: And as my massive left push kick lands SMACK in the middle of your muscular, hairy chest, leaving a big red footprint on you reminiscent of the one left by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Bruce Lee’s yellow track suit in the 1978 movie Game of Death, I am at once amazed by my own power and your durability… Although you are obviously hurting, all over, you continue to push onward. And I must do everything in my power to keep you from reaching your destination, at all costs. Because if you do, it could very well cost me the fight, and I know you will be looking to do SOMETHING in the final seconds of this round.
14:12 Joanna_Louvier: You step forward again, elbows a bit more forward, protecting your chest, and I have to resist the urge to try throwing a roundhouse kick to your head, which would compromise my ability to continue my evasion tactics if it failed to knock you out. So I throw a fully extended jab to your guard instead, looking to push you back a little and create some roadblocks to your relentless pursuit. You then take another step out on your left foot to about 45 degrees to the right from my centerline, so I mirror your movement in the opposite direction, circling to my left, keeping you on my centerline as much as I can…
14:14 Joanna_Louvier: You load and extend a jab of your own to my guard, and my kickboxing instincts tell me to slip backward, jerking my head back and taking your jab on my guard, and as you recoil your left and come at me with the right cross, I keep my left hand up to guard my chin, while swinging my right arm down as I pivot on the ball of my left foot, chambering and swinging my right leg forward—“Dshhuff!!!” Spittle flies from my mouthguard as your right hand smashes my left hand into my mouth, but not before I am able to bring my right leg in low and hard, shin and instep on track to meet that “magic spot” on the outside of your left thigh, just above your knee, looking to create some serious pain and slow you down, even just a little… something I wish I had been able to do so much earlier in this fight. I NEED to slow you down. I NEED to make it HARDER for you to CATCH me. Because I KNOW what will happen if you manage to do that.
14:16 Joanna_Louvier: Bringing my right leg back to the rear, and pushing off my leading left foot to create one more step of distance as you step across on your right leg, I bring my left elbow down to protect my ribs and absorb your right hook, “UNFFssh!” before returning fire with another jab at your forehead to snap your head back, then stepping back again, angled out somewhat to my left, about 45 degrees… This is war. A war of attrition. And I won’t let you wear me down. I won’t let you catch me. I won’t let you badger me into making a foolish mistake. I am the Huntress. And the Huntress is not rash… she is calm, she is calculating, and above all, she is patient. [J13/15]

17:16 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: That choice to let you stand up coming to bite me hard on the ass as expected, and we trade blows in delicious hand to hand combat like the evenly matched warriors we are. Equal power, different tactics, different strengths, different weaknesses. Two walk in, one walks out. I honestly expected a little more anger in your attacks, and instead you are remaining calm, cool, methodical, and deadly as ever. God damn you're impressive.
17:16 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: My fists launch a little slower around the gasping aching footprint planted in my chest, forced now to circle with fully half my vision clouded by swelling, blinking water out of my left eye. I know my face is starting to look pretty banged up with yours relatively untouched. "Bruises are like tattoos with better stories" we always said in training, and you're tattooing plenty of stories to tell, all over and up and down my body, with your skilled fists and feet.
17:16 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Before I can even strike, you're already whipping a jab at my forearms, further disrupting my momentum and keeping me from getting into a proper attack flow. You're as relentless with your defense as I am with my charge, anticipating my movements almost before I make them. It's like you're learning my body and my thoughts AS we are fighting, the sign of a true natural, and giving me even more reason to respect your skill. Talent is good. Training is good. Training on TOP of talent? That's how you make a champion. And no amount of training can explain the pure, raw talent for fighting you're showing me, and the world, now.
17:17 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Your instincts beat my waning speed as you jerk back to take my jab on your guard, AND block my cross with your left as you plant and twist your left foot. Still, my formidable strength able to punch your own glove into your light pink balm covered lips, showing you I'm still throwing heavy and dangerous despite my injuries. I wonder... what do those lips taste like? Fool. Focus.
17:17 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: In moments like these, fractions of a second count. I see you swinging that right hand down as my jab lands on your guard, and I know what it means. It means you're going to try to cut me down. The trouble is, you can't defend everywhere at once, and I'm forced to make a choice.
17:18 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I crouch down to thrust off my left foot and drive my body across the front of yours, to put my weight on my right foot in anticipation of a right hook, which I swing at your ribs as I'm bringing my left foot with me to close up my stance again. My choice is made, almost instinctually, and I use my left arm to guard my injured left eye.
17:18 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Unfortunately for me, you're not aiming that tree trunk leg at my head, you're aiming it for my knee. And with all my weight on my right foot as my right hook launches, your leg CRACKS on the lower most portion of my ileotibial band where you were aiming at the beginning of our fight, except this time it lands. It lands hard, and it lands perfectly.
17:18 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: It's in that moment that my left foot basically disengages from my body. I don't care how much you train your legs, taking a full force kick to the peroneal branch of your sciatic nerve is going to cause some temporary paralysis. In this case, with my foot already off the ground, your kick SLAMS my left leg into my right, disrupting my right hook and leaving only a fraction of the power of that punch to hit your ribs.
17:18 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Your kick lands perfectly on the thin tissues protecting my nerve, sending a SHOCK of probably the worst pain I've ever felt in my life up the largest and longest nerve in my body, with just enough force that my foot drops and hangs, unable to lift it, and when I put my weight on it, the leg just collapses. My own leg simply won't hold me up, and I crumple down to my left knee on the canvas for just a moment spitting expletives through my clenched up mouthguard like a sailor.
17:29 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: My right leg is still strong, and I bounce my left knee off the canvas and press myself up standing, just in time to receive a snappy jab to my forehead with a WHACK, kicking my head up with your fist and stumbling me back. Putting weight on my left leg again as I step back, it collapses a second time, and I bounce up wincing. Then a third time, as I back away from you purely defensively, for the first time in this fight. I'm in too much pain to strike back and too focused on the fact that my left leg simply isn't functioning, to do anything but try to stay on my feet and regain some kind of guard.
17:19 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Even that fails as I need to flail my arms to counter balance myself so I don't fall to the mat, leaving me fairly exposed, as I stumble around on one and a half legs. Fuck, I know my leg isn't broken, but it sure feels like it. Not good. [G13/15]

00:31 Joanna_Louvier: Sweat, and blood. And a trace amount of lip gloss... and leather. That’s what I taste on my lips as your right fist hammers my own gloved left hand into my mouth, driving my lower lip under my mouthguard for a fraction of a second… and in that same moment, I finish pivoting on the ball of my left foot to level a lumberjack swing of my right leg, into the nerve bundle above your left knee, with almost perfect precision and accuracy. Almost.
00:32 Joanna_Louvier: What would have made it “perfect” is if your left leg had still been planted, but I didn’t quite get there before you managed to step forward and plant your weight on your right leg… and not to mention, before you leveled a right hook to my left ribs, which is thankfully robbed of considerable power, thanks to my kick. It THWACKs into my serratus muscles and stings all the same. In any case, the calculated risk I took in launching the leg kick pays off tremendously… even better than I could have hoped.
00:33 Joanna_Louvier: In fact, as I see your powerful body collapse to one knee, suddenly taken off balance, I can’t help but feel a pang of empathy at seeing the effects of the injury I’ve inflicted on you… however temporary the paralysis is. For a moment, I think back to the restraint you showed just moments ago, when you let me get up instead of pressing the advantage. Then, you bounce back up, surging on the power of your still functioning right leg… and my instincts kick in again, telling me to follow my fight plan, snapping out a jab to your head that stuffs your momentum and sends you stumbling back again.
00:35 Joanna_Louvier: And again, your stumbling and flailing triggers my empathy response, even as my “huntress” brain categorizes you as wounded prey. Even as my fight training has taught me that this is exactly the time to press the advantage. I know what I must do, and my body is taking over even as my emotional response struggles to catch up. This is the hard part. Because deep down, human beings have so much more capacity for empathy and caring than we have for violence and cruelty. Violence is taught. And learned. Coldness and calculation are taught, and learned. In the process of training, some fighters embrace the learned capacity for inflicting harm, even learning to take immense pleasure in it. For me, it is just a means to an end.
00:36 Joanna_Louvier: I can retain my empathy, my humanity, and still be constrained by the brutal nature and structure of this sport. I can feel the pain of what this system forces us to do to each other and still do what I have to do. I don’t want to harm you. But if that is what I have to do in order to win, I will choose it every time. Because as much of a free spirit as I like to think I am… the reality of the situation is that like you, I am anything but free. The Woods is a fantasy. Even Thoreau couldn’t truly escape the “not-life” of a repressive social system by staying in that little log cabin on Walden Pond. It was a creative exercise. A damn good one, but nothing more.
00:36 Joanna_Louvier: We can catch glimpses of a sort of Platonic ideal of freedom… of bare existence… sometimes we can even touch them, for a moment. Most “normal” people usually turn to “communing with nature,” which I also do on occasion. Others, like me, are drawn to the primal experience of hand to hand combat. For me, the hyperfocus brought on by this experience is the closest I can get to experiencing that sensation of total freedom…if just for a moment.
00:38 Joanna_Louvier: There have been moments of freedom, of play, of pure joy, that I’ve had the privilege of sharing with you in this cage tonight. This is not one of them. As you stumble, I feel the chill of Artemis plucking my nerves like the strings of a celestial hunting bow as I close with you, even as my gut roils at seeing you struggle to just stay upright. Guiding my limbs as my tall frame towers over you, stalking straight towards you as you stumble back to the cage. Pluck! Launching another jab to that right eye, then stepping across you to my right, pluck! swinging a right bolo punch to your jaw, and then, if you’re somehow still standing, stepping back and switching into a left rear roundhouse kick from southpaw pluck! to your left ribs, before switching back and taking another step back to reassess.
00:39 Joanna_Louvier: As much as I have the advantage in the current moment, I know you are wounded, and that makes you a whole different kind of dangerous. I can’t afford to get too aggressive. Patience, huntress… [J14/15]

02:21 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: With that paralytic shin to my leg, this dance we've been dancing takes a decidedly brutal turn, and I start doing a solo jig, flailing and stumbling. We're not dancing as partners anymore. This is war.
02:21 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Except, I look up at your beautiful face, and I see it. I see that little empathetic wince as my leg buckles. And I see that empathy fade into the cold and heartless grip of duty. It was only there for a moment, but I saw it. I saw your humanity shining through. Your compassion. It's there. Also, this is not a time for compassion. As professional fighters, we have literally trained our whole adult lives to hurt each other. We both know the risks, we both know the costs. We both step into this octagon knowing we might not walk out.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: In a way, we're doing a public service. That's how I like to think about it, at least. Nearly every animal species still left on Earth has at least the capacity for violence programmed into it; that's how we've managed to survive these many millennia against forces trying to crush us. Violence is simply part of what makes a human, HUMAN.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: The entire point of society, of course, is to create a system where violence is... if not minimized, at least... contained. Back several years now, violence used to be sterilized, prepackaged and contained for public consumption in the form of organized 'wars' using a ball of some kind as the thing two sports teams were fighting to possess. Essentially every variety of 'sportsball' is a miniature war, with two equally matched teams fighting for 'dominance'. And then both teams shake hands and walk off the field, essentially unharmed, and go back to their families.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: True dominance, of course, is nothing like sportsball. True Dominance would be a team of 11 large men on the football field playing against a child.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: No, the 'dominance' that humans are programmed to publicly allow ourselves to enjoy is fought between equals. An 'evenly matched back-and-forth battle for control'. Most humans innately find it... unpleasant.. to watch a bigger, stronger person or a bigger, stronger group just MANHANDLE and DESTROY a smaller, weaker person or group. And yet, throughout the majority of human history, that's how many battles were fought and won. After all, if you could take 1000 men into a battle against 10, wouldn't you?
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: "All's fair in love and war." Truer words were never spoken. The man who impregnates the woman wins life. The victorious army gets to not only steal all the loser's resources, they get to re-write history so that they were the heroes and the defeated were the villains. The TRUE function of violence in a human, isn't to fight an equally matched back-and-forth. War best fought, intends to CRUSH anything in its path to establish TOTAL Dominance. That's how humans achieved uncontested Dominance over land, sea, and air on this planet. It's how larger men will nearly always Dominate over smaller men, and why women will always flock to them. "Survival of the fittest" isn't just a social trend, it's programmed into literally every life form on the planet. Because if it wasn't? If you were the 'least fit' to survive? You would have DIED OUT long ago.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Keeping creatures alive who are unfit for survival has become almost a hobby for humanity. Growing cows, pigs, chickens, and other livestock for the express purpose of killing and eating them later without a fight. Total Dominance.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Breeding pets who are so malformed they're both incapable of sex, and incapable of delivering their own babies without surgical intervention. Just so a human can call their malformations 'cute' and dote on them like children who never grow up. Total Dominance.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: The real purpose of human violence isn't to compete in an 'equally matched back-and-forth'. The real, innate, programmed purpose of violence in humanity is to TOTALLY DOMINATE, and UTTERLY DESTROY any trace of resistance, wiping it out of the history books entirely as though it never existed in the first place.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: That level of violence however... the NATURAL form of human violence, is harmful to the social fabric of humanity. Sure, it takes training to ACCOMPLISH that level of brutality, but humans are BORN with the capacity to IMAGINE horrific violence and the total destruction of life as we know it. That's why children wake up with nightmares. Training in violence just gives us the ABILITY to accomplish what we already know in our hearts is possible.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: The purpose of professional fighting is to give humanity a safe place to direct that innate instinct to CRUSH another human being to ensure our own survival, that is programmed into all of us. It's sterilized violence. Generally speaking, nobody dies in the cage. After a few weeks or months of medical therapy, nearly any fighter no matter the extent of their injuries, can leave the octagon and end up living a normal life. And that's because there are rules and officials keeping the humans inside this octagon from invoking our TRUE natures, and ending one another's life.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Violence is taught, but the capacity for violence is innate. Mercy is also taught, and the capacity for mercy is also innate. A society that values violence over mercy, will inevitably experience more violence, death, destruction. A society that values mercy, will experience growth and prosperity.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: The entire movement of MMA gyms taking over every gym in the world in the wake of the WUCL's rise to Dominance on the world's sports stage, is both a symptom of, and the cause of, a worldwide shift towards mercy. Because when you know how to hurt another person, and you're encouraged not do, you won't.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: In the octagon... we are encouraged to hurt each other. It's our actual job. And we do this thing we do here not only for personal gain, but so that every Joe and Jane out there on the mats in their local gym can see what real violence looks like. And experience it vicariously through the fighters on this global stage.
02:22 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: It's beautiful, really. How many thousands of years we've spent studying how to most efficiently disable and kill each other with our bare hands. Modern warfare made hand-to-hand combat obsolete many years ago, but as a species we never evolved above violence, and probably never will. And now the study of how to hurt, maim, kill each other as efficiently as possible is trained on every corner gym in the country, and yet... so few die. Because mercy is taught right alongside those killing techniques.
02:23 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: If you showed me mercy right now, you would be betraying the public's trust. The public NEEDS you to hurt me and commit violence against me, so they don't have to hurt each other. And so I welcome your attacks.
02:23 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Masculinity has been described as "the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility." And in this moment, I gladly assume the sacrificial responsibility of providing humanity with an outlet for their natural NEED for violence, giving every person watching us fight an outlet for their utterly normal and natural fantasies of beating someone else into the ground.
02:23 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: As I stumble away from you, injured, I see the humanity in your eyes. I then see you brush it away after years and years of training to brush it away, and the mercy on your face is replaced with cold, calm, calculated, natural, innate, human violence, unleashed. Just the way you've been trained to.
02:23 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Your merciless jab SMACKS hard into my already brutalized right eye barely recovered from earlier, launching a shower of sweat off my face and mussed up mop of hair, and I stumble back, my left leg tingling, my nerve on fire, nearly blind now with both eyes swollen nearly shut... "MMMMPH"...
02:23 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Your body a well oiled machine, operating in kill mode, you don't even hesitate to plant your right foot and WHIP your right fist up into my chin with a SPECTACULAR bolo punch from way back, barely giving me a dazed and foggy glimpse of your pumped up bicep as you DRIVE that fist up into the flesh of my jaw, throwing my head up to look at the ceiling lights over the octagon in an even MORE spectacular shower of my bodily fluids arcing up into the air overhead, and I feel the dizziness washing over me as my body FIGHTS to stay upright, even when I can barely tell which way upright is.
02:23 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I pull my guard in as tight as I can to my head, hunching over, fighting my body's own instincts to collapse and beg for mercy. Now is not the time, body. Mind over matter. You do what you're TRAINED TO DO, AND TAKE IT..... "WWWHHHAAAMMM" a big left rear roundhouse PLOWS into my upper body, catching half my right bicep and half my ribs and half my forearm and half my chest, and not even my body understands the math and physics being applied to it as your muscular leg kick LIFTS me off the canvas to FLY back into the cage wall, the steel of the cage digging into my strong, wide, muscular back.
02:23 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I keep my guard up as tight as I can, but I'm turtled. My head is spinning. My left leg is grateful to have a cage wall to lean against, as I put most of my weight on my right. My jaw aches. I can barely see through the slits in my eyes. My lungs are DESPERATE for oxygen, and I'm HEAVING. I vaguely remember something about trying to make it through a round, but all my thoughts are a little muddy. All I know is there's a powerful, strong, muscular human in front of me, intent on wiping me out of the history books. My mind goes blank. Zen like. Meditative. Falling down from the level of my expectations, to the level of my training. And my training says one, simple thing. Do NOT stay in one place, or you'll be murdered. Fall to your instincts. MOVE.
02:24 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I shuffle against the cage wall to my right, basically dragging my left leg along with me as I plant all my weight on my right and move in that direction. The grating of the cage wall scraping against my back. Trying to push myself off the wall towards you and circle away from the cage wall. "Two fighters walk in... one walks out..." [G14/15]

21:49 Joanna_Louvier: In the final seconds of this match, I can feel the tension in the arena reaching a fever pitch. This entire fight so far has been marked by tension… between male and female, society and nature, closeness and distance, within and without, play and duty, domination and submission, mercy and brutality, yin and yang… and at this critical moment, I have the opportunity to bring that tension to a climactic breaking point. Specifically, I have the opportunity to break you.
21:50 Joanna_Louvier: You stagger along the cage wall, pushing off onto your right leg, sort of towards me, looking like I could knock you over with a stiff breeze. And I have a stable of kicks at my disposal with which I could dispose of you quite easily, most of which you would be powerless to stop. But at the same time… I’m fucking tired. I haven’t taken the same beating you have, but I have certainly been running hot for the past few minutes to stay on top of this fight, and to prevent you from closing the distance. Frankly, I don’t know if I could pull off a fancy kick right now. Maybe it would leave me open, giving you the opportunity to land that one lucky shot that drops me at the last second.
21:57 Joanna_Louvier: I’m not taking chances. Steady, methodical. Mechanical. Like a terminator. Moving in again to finish the job, before you have a chance to get that round break and recover from my brutal leg kick. The tension on the strings that line my muscles humming with every pluck of Artemis’ bow. Now, Huntress. It’s time to KILL. I do open with a kick, of course, but only to create more openings. I step across the center line with my left foot, swinging a wide and ponderous right roundhouse kick at your left ribs, then a jab to your guard, then a feinted right cross at your chin… Yes, bring that guard up, Greg… then, I step out on my right foot, throwing a piercing left straight to your upper abs, then digging a right hook at your left ribs, left uppercut to your solar plexus… hopefully I have your attention now…
21:58 Joanna_Louvier: Then, stepping back, following with a heavy right cross to your chin, which, if all goes as planned… you will walk right into, finally laying you out cold. Good fight, Greg… and good night. [J15/15]

02:42 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: My limping, shuffling push off the cage wall making me look and feel like a lame old man... if that old man had been hit by a truck, and then run over by a bus. I don't want to think about what my body must look like after absorbing just a BRUTAL pounding from you through this whole round, let alone my face. What I do know is I can barely see through the swelling around my eyes, my lungs are burning, my corner is just SCREAMING at me to get away from the wall, I'm breathing like I've run a marathon, and only my right leg works properly. I take a quick glance up at the clock, and see there are only precious few seconds remaining in this round. Can I hold out until the end? Can I make anything happen before then? Or is this gorgeous Amazon going to put my lights out in front of billions of people and put an end to my championship reign? At this point, odds are looking real good in your favor. But I didn't become champ by giving up.
02:42 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I am heartened by one thing. You look as tired as I feel. And no wonder, you've been throwing BOMBS at me for the last five straight minutes. Not too tired to throw a kick with that meaty leg, it seems. With my shuffles off to the right leading me off the wall, you 'help' me along with a big swing of your tree trunk leg beneath my left elbow, THUDDING into my already bruised up ribs.. my body is starting to become real familiar with the ache of your limbs slamming into me... "HUUNNNGGHHH"... wincing me around your heavy blow and kicking me nearly off my feet as I essentially skip on my right foot a couple inches to the right one, two, three times before I have to stumble REAL hard, limping on my still mostly dysfunctional left leg before catching myself on my right leg... leftRIGHT, leftRIGHT, leftRIGHT, to keep myself from falling.
02:42 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: You waste no time chasing in to follow up that heavy kick, as my body is still screaming in pain and begging me to throw in the towel. Your gloved fist whips towards my head with a jab, and I turtle up.. WHAP.. taking that punch on my forearms. You send a right hand at me, and I keep that guard strong. You're going to have to BREAK down this wall, Huntress. I'm not letting you in without anything short of a battering ram. I've taken the best and the worst the world's best fighters have to offer for years, and I'm simply... not done. And this last little barrage of yours before the bell HAS to have a hole in it for me to pierce through somewhere.
02:43 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Moving with only slightly less grace and speed and power as you've shown through most of this fight, you step out on your right foot to my left, digging your left fist directly into my aching, softening, red, bruised up abs below my elbows... "UULLLFFF"... I know the seconds are counting down, but I don't know if I'll make it... you twist your body again and bring your right DEEP into my side, the same ribs you just nailed with that kick... "HOOOFFFFF"... AH FUCK.. thinking I might have a broken rib after that one, and wincing bent over my left, as you meet my folded over body with ONE MORE big punch, a heavy uppercut with your bicep flexing, lifting up into my already brutalized solar plexus... "HUUNNNGGGHH" your fists driving a symphony of grunts and groans out of me, and I start coughing around the pain in my torso. FUCK. You're just POUNDING me. NOT GOOD. Gotta do SOMETHING.
02:44 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: And there it is. You STEP BACK. Of all the things you could have done in that moment, with me teetering on the brink of defeat, you step BACK. Making yourself room to deliver the big coup de grace, no doubt, but giving me just the half second I need to move my body in something truly desperate. Folded over the aches and pains in my ribs, my plexus, my abs, not sure if my left leg is even capable of what I'm about to ask it to do, I step towards you on my right foot, my head thrusting directly towards your pulled back fist, looking to get deep inside your fight triangle. Then I dip my left shoulder down and forward, bend my right knee, and swing my hips clockwise, all my momentum moving your way.
02:44 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I can see that right cross coming my way, not sure if my internal calculations were correct and knowing if I'm wrong I'm done for. feel the wind off your gloved right fist blowing past my left shoulder and upper back as I rotate in towards you, barely slipping your fight ending punch, rotating on the ball of my right foot, careening almost out of control. My crippled left foot touching down by your left foot just long enough to add the tiniest bit of support before my right replaces it, my heel and pointed towards you.
02:45 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: With everything I've got left, I lift my right shoulder up against my cheek, and raise my right elbow into the air. Rotating nearly 360 degrees, your right cross extended under my right armpit, I swing my elbow over top of your arm, my right tricep gliding along your bulging right bicep, my elbow swinging around in an arc towards your neck, jaw, cheek, head, SOMETHING, in the last move I can pull off, a right spinning elbow inside your triangle, looking to cut you down in the final seconds of Round 2. [G15/15]

18:28 Joanna_Louvier: Come on, fucker, just go down already… everything I throw at you landing, one brutal blow after another, although I shouldn’t have wasted time with the feinted cross, since you’re probably too beat up and blind to even see it at this point. My left straight penetrates so deep, it almost feels like I’m about to punch into your spine from the front. And I’m certain I broke a rib or two of yours with that heavy, digging right hook. And… after landing that uppercut to your solar plexus, I’m surprised you don’t just pass out from lack of oxygen. The crowd is going nuts at this point, roaring so loudly that I’m starting to notice them again, despite how laser focused I am on destroying you. But you’re still standing as I step back, ready to deliver that right cross and knock your ass out.
18:29 Joanna_Louvier: Then you step in on your right leg as I launch my right, dipping your left shoulder and head, looking like you’re about to finally collapse. Finally, it’s happening—No… I see your elbow cresting over my right arm as you complete your rotation, like an angry sunrise coming up over the horizon… too quickly for me to do anything about it, and my feet are positioned in the worst possible way to maneuver out of it as I overextend my arm, with only my shoulder granting minimal cover to the right side of my face.
18:30 Joanna_Louvier: Everything goes white, then red, then I snap back into my surroundings again, spinning counterclockwise as I’m sent to the canvas, a gout of blood painting it with drops of red below me as I land on my hands and knees… DING DING just in time for the bell to ring, signaling the end of round two… You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me… I look around for you to make sure you’re not trying to follow up, but you’re down too… The ref has stepped in between us… that spinning elbow was probably the last trick you had up your sleeve, and you played it perfectly.
18:32 Joanna_Louvier: I don’t have to look, and I don’t have to touch, to know that I’m leaking pretty badly from a ~2” horizontal cut on my right cheekbone, about an inch below my right eye. Fuck. Not good. But at least I got a cool souvenir from this fight… OK… need to get to my corner and staunch that bleeding. I’m going to need my blood for next round. The ref and a medic come over to me to check out the injury… I wave them off—ready to keep fighting next round. It’s nothing too serious. I get back up. Not stunned, just tired. With a stinging, weeping gash below my right eye. Will need to protect it so you don’t end up making it worse. I walk back to my corner, saying nothing, breathing heavily.
18:33 Joanna_Louvier: My coach is praising my ability to keep control of the space for the most part. Saying to avoid letting you get in close… like I haven’t heard it a million times already. Set up your kicks, he says. Use your legs and your reach to take him out. I’m still just trying to come to terms with how much damage you’ve been able to take and still keep fighting. I’m tough, but there’s no way I could take as many hits a you have without going down at this point. You have been able to win most of your fights without having to rely on your exceptional durability, but if all else fails, you can rely on that a bit to stay in the fight and make something happen. I have to stay a couple steps ahead of you, punch through that last barrier, and finally bring you down, one way or another.
18:35 Joanna_Louvier: My corner applies a hemostat to my cheek, and I get some water and a towel. My coach rubs down my legs. My team working like a pit crew in a NASCAR race. If only I could change out my wheels for a new set right now. 15 seconds left… I stand back up. Coach puts his hand on my shoulder. Looking at me, saying nothing… I’m looking across the cage at you. I feel his hand leave my shoulder. Hear the cage door shut again. Hands up, guard ready in my orthodox stance… bouncing lightly. I crack a big smile through my mouthguard. Not because I feel like smiling. Because I’ve trained to smile when it hurts. And as much as I hurt right now, I know you’re hurting more. And I want you to know it’s OK to surrender. I’ll take it from here, Greg. You need to settle down. DING DING… Round three has begun. [J-R2B]

21:07 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Honestly, in the moment I'm not even sure what part of you I hit with that spinning elbow. All I know is my still tingling left leg nearly collapsed even with what little weight I put on it, I felt a THUD of impact from somewhere around your head on the back of my arm, and then we were both falling back to the canvas.
21:08 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I must have hit you pretty good, because my elbow stings. I land hard on my right hip and then fall down to the canvas on my right shoulder, thankfully keeping my head from making contact. Panting around my spasming abdominal muscles, sweat just pouring off me onto the canvas, my head spinning from the punishment I've absorbed and from my fall, for the first few moments after my momentum crashes into the ground, my first thought is to look around and make sure you're still moving. For one, worried I might have seriously injured you. For two, because if you're still moving, it's my job to make sure you stop.
21:08 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: A moment later, I catch sight of you, on your hands and knees, dripping blood from your face. I think to myself Mmm... you look really good on your hands and knees... also fuck, are you bleeding from your mouth? I wonder if you have a concussion. I wonder if you have a broken jaw. I wonder how you're still conscious. I wonder a lot of things, but one thing is still certain. You're alive. We're alive. Thank fuck, we're both alive.
21:08 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: It's hard to tell where you're bleeding from, as all I see is a crimson stream down the side of your head and a few drops clinging to your chin before dripping to the ground. I swing my left foot to plant on the canvas and push myself up, but it's still tingling... the foot says 'not yet, Sir'. Doing a little math and physics calculation in my head to try to predict how I'll respond and get you into my guard when you leap onto me from your crouched position, my somewhat foggy mind still coming down off my instunctual fight or flight response and coming back into focus, all that calculating interrupted when DING DING goes the bell.
21:08 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: I stay where I am for just a few precious seconds, and honestly, my heart sinks a little. A spinning elbow is far from a guaranteed knockout. Nothing is a guaranteed knockout. But it looks like my spectacular desperation move landed flush on your head, and... you're waving off the ref to climb to your feet. Holy FUCK you're tough. I hurt ALL OVER, my vision impaired, my rib likely broken, but you took a FULL FORCE ELBOW TO THE HEAD and you're still going. I honestly don't know how I'm going to stop you in the next round, that one way or the other, I suspect will be our last. If THAT didn't stop you... what will?
21:08 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: Crawling a little, stomping stomping stomping that left foot on the ground as my feeling returns in my leg, pushing up and falling to my right knee... the ref walks over my way and I GROWL, pushing up and PLANTING my right foot, and he knows better than to stop in his tracks and back away as I give him the primal nod that he knows well. The champ is okay to fight. limping to my corner crew, then walking a little stronger by each step. My people look... worried, as they look me over. Really worried. "Don't look at me like that guys, just get me cleaned up and back out there."
21:08 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: My cutman checks me over and applies his cold steel enswell to not one, but both my eyes, doing his best to push the swelling back into place. A monumental task given how badly you beat up both eye sockets. "You cut her right cheek with that elbow" he tells me, "so she's going to be protecting that side." Obvious advice, but thanks anyway. I take a few sips of water as twice as much drips off me and onto the canvas, savoring this moment of cool and calm before the storm rages once more. I look across the cage behind you, to see a group of three girls shoving themselves against the cage wall and lifting up their shirts and pressing their tits against the steel before security escorts them away. Cute, but you little cupcakes are a dime a dozen, and not who I want...
21:08 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: My heart rate slowing a little as the final seconds of our break wind down. I've fought in situations just like this hundreds of times, and I'm well trained to calm my body so it doesn't panic and shut down, when it probably should. I don't remember being this hurt before though. Luckily 60 seconds isn't quite long enough for your body's sympathetic nervous system to stop doing its thing and let the parasympathetic system take over, otherwise I wouldn't be able to continue. Once you go down that road to collapse, there's no coming back.
21:08 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: My team helps me to my feet, with little of the bounce I can see in your step. I plod slowly forward, almost shuffling. Of all the parts of my body busted up and bruised up, my arms are still feeling pretty good. Probably because I didn't get to use them much over the last five minutes.
21:08 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: You smile, and I get a glance at that big cut on your cheek. Scars are like tattoos with better stories I remember now, is the expression. It's not bruises, it's scars. You'll be carrying the story of that scar around with you a long time now. Maybe for life.
21:08 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: My rib will heal. My bruises will heal. My leg is starting to function. My eyes both work. I'm not in great shape, but I'm alive. I'm functional. And I'm ready to finish this. One way or the other, this is the round to get it done. I look over at you, and you... smile. It's not a pleasant smile. Did you know? Cats purr when they want you to continue directing your attention at them in whatever way you're currently doing. They purr when they're happy and want pets, but they also purr when they're sick or tired and need medical attention. What does your smile mean? Are you purring?
21:09 Greg_the_Pet_Vet: DING DING goes the bell, and I lift my fists shuffling tentatively towards you... everything I do now has to COUNT. Let's end this, kitten. [G-R2B]

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Published: 2022-05-10, viewed 66 times.