Брайс Куртенэ - The Power of One

Suddenly the hall resounded with clapping and whistling, it was packed to the rafters with Helpmekaar guys.

‘Holy shit!’ I exclaimed, turning to Hymie.

Hymie glanced at the grinning faces looking at us. ‘Keep calm, pretend you’re not surprised, we don’t want him to have the psychological advantage.’ Hymie, as usual, was thinking on his feet. We climbed up into the ring and Hymie gloved me up. Geldenhuis was already in his corner throwing punches into the air. As usual I sat on the pot and waited.

The referee, a chap in his mid-twenties, called us into the centre of the ring. ‘Okay, boxers, shake hands! Break when I say break. A knock down takes a compulsory count of eight, I don’t start counting until you’re in a neutral corner. Three warnings on a foul and the fight goes against you.’

Neither of us were listening to him. ‘This time I get you Rooinek,’ Jannie Geldenhuis said out of the corner of his mouth.

‘This fight comes to you with the compliments of the Jewboy, Boer bastard!’ I spat back.

‘Ready timekeeper? Seconds out of the ring!’ The bell went and we danced towards each other. I could see Geldenhuis meant business, he had five defeats to avenge and his eyes were hard. Fighting in the enemy camp in front of a hostile crowd I wasn’t about to let him have the satisfaction. He was a naturally aggressive fighter and I wasn’t going to give him the opportunity of landing a few good punches early so I spent the first half of round one on the back foot using the ring and staying clear of the ropes. Later Hymie told me the Helpmekaar kids were yelling their heads off but it was as though I was fighting in a vacuum, my concentration was complete. Geldenhuis threw a lot of leather but most of it landed on my arms and gloves, though he did score with two punches. A beautiful uppercut as he caught me briefly on the ropes and a right under the heart. Both punches hurt like hell. It was sheer luck that I hadn’t had any lunch. Sinjun had had me for a tutorial which had gone on an extra half hour and so I’d missed lunch. I was willing to bet Geldenhuis hadn’t eaten since morning.

I caught Geldenhuis a beautiful punch on the jaw which stopped him in his tracks. He had come at me with a careless left lead and I brought my right hand across his lead to hit him hard on the side of the jaw. Jannie was a sucker for repeating a mistake and later in the round he led again with a sloppy left. This time I came under the blow and caught him with everything I had under the heart. I could see his eyes boggle and he staggered back into the ropes where I hit him with a left right combination in the gut, expecting his gloves to open so that I could get an uppercut to the jaw. Instead, anticipating the uppercut, he defended his head, leaving his gut exposed. In went the Geel Piet eight-punch combination and he grabbed at the ropes just as the bell went. The first round was mine.

Hymie had noticed the same thing as I had, Geldenhuis had developed a peculiar habit, in order to set himself for a left hook, he held his right elbow high, opening up his rib cage, and I’d given him a lot of punishment in the area right under the heart. The eight-punch combo was just what I needed to soften him up for later in the fight. As Geel Piet would say, ‘If you hit them enough in between the heart and the belt the legs will soon melt.’

To my surprise, in the second round he continued to be the aggressor. I’d never seen him fight better. His punches were crisp and finding their mark disconcertingly often. In the middle of the round I changed to a southpaw stance. This confused him enough to get me through the round with no more punishment. And while I’d put a lot of hard work into his body he’d won the round, I felt sure. When a fighter gets set and is able to move his opponent into the corners, he can do a lot of harm and look very good.

I hated to lose the second round, it gives your opponent the psychological advantage, knowing he’s going into the last round with his tail up. Besides, it gives the referee a chance to call a draw if the final round isn’t convincing.

The extra weight Jannie had gained had increased his strength and he had seemed to take in his stride the punishment I’d given him.

Jannie knew he had to make the final round look good, and I knew I had to make it look great. As a fighter he had the edge over a boxer, the aggressor moving relentlessly forward is a crowd pleaser and a partisan crowd is apt to forget the winner is the guy who lands the most clean punches. I hoped the ref was good enough to call it correctly but with a home crowd like this a close decision in my favour would get us lynched.

Jannie began the final round by circling me, boxing clever. I had switched back from a southpaw stance and he was no match for me as a boxer, provided I stayed in the centre of the ring and off the ropes. I held him off easily enough. He kept moving in close, trying to throw the left hook to the head, the punch he’d decided would take me out. I could have kept him off with a straight right, just jabbing away and scoring, but I felt I was fast enough to keep my head out of the way of his vicious left hook which, every time he threw it, lifted his right elbow and made a delicious target for me to plant a hard left uppercut under his heart. To a percentage boxer like me this was money in the bank.

Geldenhuis threw another hard left hook which caught me a glancing blow on the side of the head. I didn’t even have to look, the right elbow would be way up in the air and I drove a left hook in as hard as I could. The light suddenly left his eyes, Geel Piet was right as usual, his head had gone.

I changed onto the front foot and into attack. The sudden onslaught caught Geldenhuis completely by surprise and gaps in his defence opened up everywhere. His concept of me as a boxer who worked mostly off the back foot was so completely fixed in his mind that he was unable to respond to the fighter who now brought the fight to him, hitting him seemingly at will. He dropped his defences as he reached out too soon for a clinch and I caught him on the point of the jaw with a right cross which knocked him into the ropes, leaving his midriff exposed as his hands shot up into the air. I moved in with another of Geel Piet’s eight-punch combinations, all of them clean, hard punches even though they were thrown at short range. He pulled me into a clinch and the ref separated us. I’d taken the stuffing out of him and thirty seconds later he missed with a right and the left that followed and I hit him with the best punch I had thrown in my life, a right uppercut which packed everything I had behind it and caught him perfectly under the point of the chin.

It was the first absolute knockout I’d ever achieved. Jannie Geldenhuis went down like a sack of potatoes and lay sprawled on the canvas. I retired quickly to a neutral corner; while he hadn’t moved I fully expected him to take the eight count before getting up. The ref stood over him counting; at seven Geldenhuis managed to get up onto his elbow but that was all. At ten he slumped back onto the canvas.

The ref moved over and held my hand up. The audience was clearly stunned. After their initial shock, and as Jannie got to his feet, they stood up and gave me a really big round of applause. Hymie jumped into the ring and held my arm up again, which was unnecessary. Jannie Geldenhuis helped by his seconds climbed through the ropes without coming over.

I grinned. ‘Christ Hymie, what a preliminary for getting the punters ready to bet on a game of rugby.’

‘Couldn’t be better if I’d set it up myself,’ he said.

We climbed from the ropes and the Helpmekaar chaps made way for us as we walked towards the door. ‘Promise me something, Hymie.’

‘Yeah, sure, what is it?’