Michael Seidlinger - The Laughter of Strangers

You can say that “Ironman” did well to spread the Floures name with his attempted suicide and bout with depression, one of the biggest national stories in recent sports history, but I was the one Williem Floures that created this whole league, made it so that the name Floures is synonymous with combat, with boxing.

FIFTY-TWO WINS

Might as well be a fine wine because thinking about it makes me feel all warm and buzzed.

TWELVE BY KO

I managed that not because they couldn’t take a punch — they can take a punch as well as I can — but because of wearing them down first with the jab. Like Spencer always said, lead with the jab, smother with the jab, and wait for the opening. Land as close to the temple or as snugly under the chin and rock that brain, send them to the canvas, watch them dance their way to defeat. I waited them out, knowing that I’d get impatient.

“Fight like you are not who you are and that’ll keep them on their toes.”

WISE WORDS

Spencer, my trainer and agent, I couldn’t have amassed the record without his guidance. He’s right though—

I know how they’ll fight just like they know how I’ll fight.

They know what I’m thinking.

I know what they are thinking.

We are alike because we are alike.

So to win, to be the best, I can’t be myself.

I must fight like I’m someone else, like I don’t know what I’m doing.

Worked for the majority of my wins, not so much for the four losses.

But I don’t like to talk about that. Means Spencer always talks about it. Means it’s something that I should do because I wouldn’t normally do it myself. Go against the grain, the expected.

FOUR LOSSES

Not so bad.

MAKE IT FIVE

Still not bad.

IT IS BAD

I’M JUST NOT GOING TO ADMIT IT

UNTIL I HAVE TO

Here’s the rationalization that works best:

It benefits one it benefits all. Younger throws the shot and I, the older, take it. I hit the canvas. I taste copper. Sure, sure, I look bad but it’s getting better. The audience gets a knockdown. We both get purse money.

He’ll go out after this, night on the town, while I go to the emergency room, welts the size of a second head swelling from the side of my face.

That’s my rationalization and I’m going to stick to it.

I’m going to keep applying pressure to the wound on my forehead and I’m not going to look in any mirrors.

I don’t want to see what I look like.

I can feel the welt on the side of my face throbbing. It must be the size of a baseball. I can get past most of the loss but it’s what they do to drain the welt that I associate most with my current situation.

Proof that I’m not a narcissist:

I ADMIT IT

I admit it, okay?

I admit that I’m getting old.

I should think about retiring. I really should.

If I do, that means…it means the worst for what I wanted out of this life. You step aside. Retirement is about as punishing an act as it sounds; you retire all cred; you are incapable of climbing into the ring, between the ropes, never again able to wear the gloves, bite deep into the mouth guard, stare yourself down across the ring, fighting not only yourself but everything you don’t see boiling to the surface.

No matter what their alias might be, they are all me.

We are all alike.

And no one will take the place of ‘Sugar’ Willem Floures.

If I retired, though, how would I be able to protect my record? My legacy? My name? This brand? Can they really have the brand in their best interests? It’s too easy to be forgotten in this world.

BRAND AWARENESS

Willem Floures is synonymous with the sport.

However, it might not be in a few short years.

There are plenty of other names fighting, all of them trying to book the same stadiums, secure the same Pay Per View slots, that Floures has successfully achieved in the four and a half decades of fight that I’ve championed. All of us in the league, we fight each other as much as we fight the world. The world might not care for much longer. That’s what bleeds the most, hurts the deepest: The thought that every punch landed, every punch absorbed, every scar carved into my skin, will be as insignificant as the dead buried six feet under, aging stone slabs the only real remembrance, their only real legacy.

I AM AFRAID OF IT

What I worry most is that my time in the ring is passing, slipping from my grip.

THE LAUGHTER

Looking back all I hear is laughter. All I see is white. All I taste is the ache of my bleeding mouth, tongue numb, my eyes wanting so very much to roll back, have a look at the inside of my broken skull.

Looking ahead, all I hear is Spencer.

“Before I send you to the hospital to lick those poor little wounds of yours, we have to go through this!”

Just his way: tough, stern, uncompromising.

I can barely sit up straight but he’s throwing a screen in my face, pointing at the fight footage fresh from the feed.

I always wonder how Spencer can afford every little new gadget in the world but then again I forget that Floures is a moneymaker of a name.

Haven’t spent a dime myself, but that’s because I’m not in this for the money. I’m in this for—

Well if I said it I wouldn’t believe it.

People step in the ring to fight themselves.

That’s the plain truth. No doubt about it.

“Round two you got it all wrong! What the hell were you thinking?! Did you not hear me say duck the left hook? ‘Executioner’ uses the left hook as much as you fucking did back when you were ten fights into your career. How could you forget?!”

That’s another problem:

FORGETTING

My memory. It’s not what it used to be. I have a lot of bad habits, many of them I have no recollection of and it probably makes me look horrible.

I tend to apologize as much as I thank the fans.

“Left hook, left hook, left hook! Round five you’re all over the place!”

Spencer pauses the footage and points to where I stick my chin out like an amateur, getting caught with an uppercut that resulted in the first of two knockdowns.

“Yeah well at least I get up after this one,” the best excuse I can make.

Spencer does that thing where his right eye closes and he shakes his head. Something only Spencer Mullen would do, his way of dealing with smart-ass remarks (my forte).

“Round eight flatline!”

“I know, I know.”

“You ‘know,’ but you don’t understand! How does the man carrying the legendary name of ‘Sugar’ get caught with such plain shots to the face? Why the hell were you not covering your face?!”

Spencer fast forwards the footage to where I foolishly drop my arms, making it look like a taunt, when in fact it was because I felt the tickle, the feeling of goose bumps, going up both of my arms. I was gassed.

Completely gassed.

If I bothered to block, much less throw another punch, it could have been swatting a fly. And the fly would get away without a single mark.

“It helps the brand,” another smartass remark.

Spencer taps at the screen, bringing up one of the countless fight reports, checks the CompuBox, number of punches landed versus thrown, and doesn’t say a word. He looks up at me, eye closed, a sigh, and taps the screen.

Yes, I get it.

This wasn’t just a loss.

It may very well have been a turning point.

‘X’ won, 11-0 record. Ten by KO.

DECENT FIGHT RECORD

Is he a prodigy? You might say he is.

“You’ll want to take him up on the rematch clause,” Spencer insists.

A rematch. What does it mean when I go pale, flush with fear, at such a thought? Don’t answer that. Spencer leans in close and looks at the welt.

Makes a clicking noise with his tongue, “This was the left hook that done it.”