You wouldn't think you could get a boxing glove into 4 ounces but it was the 4 ounce boxing league Sahara signed for - she sneers at bigger boxing gloves - the most treacherous route to a title in the pub-fight boxing league and when the fight starts, it's a single round until there's a winner.
The face-off at the weigh-in.
Both 102 lbs and 5'2" Sahara and Jasmine walk into the ring to the tumultuous cheers and applause from the small crowd. Only deep-pocket sponsors get to these matches.
Jasmine looks in superb fighting condition as she poses.
There's a lot of money on Jasmine and I'm hearing she's had a few organised street fights, a woman told me to put my money on Jasmine, she hadn't lost a fight up to to-night but she's about to find out what losing means, my money's on Sahara.
I'm always wary about unsanctioned fights, some of these girls get up to and I wanted to slip the word of what I've heard to Sahara but I've seen her in tough battles that have been sanctioned and unsanctioned, so I know she can look after herself.
It has to be said that Sahara likes her fingers free so she can tackle her opponent's hair for leverage but the boxing glove is a different story, she'll learn the hard way, she always does.
Sahara's got her top off, she means business.
An initial loss at boxing would be awkward for Sahara but I shouldn't fret. She'd give me a withering look and call me a wimp if I said I was worried for her.
Usually this type of fights can last up to 4 minutes, the record being 4 mins 55sec., and that was another of my favourites, Lacey, when she beat Charlie on the ' Quarter Pound Her ' circuit. Lacey's looking good and on her way to a title shot. Truth be told I think Sahara is in this league for a go at Lacey, who she thinks has been avoiding her: there is a big history between them!
As the girls wait for the bell, they look lean and fit, stripped down, a slight glint on their naked parts, wearing the tiny boxing gloves, flexing their limbs and looking each other over.
Sahara poses for a photo by a well-wisher.
The lights dim and the crowd hushes. The only lights on, shine into the small three-sided cubicle of concrete walls and concrete floor, where the girls sportingly approach the centre in two and a half paces and touch gloves.
' You're dead meat!' said Jasmine, Sahara laughs: ' And you're just too old! ' she claims with a dismissive wave.
Sahara in thoughtful mode as she waits for the bell.
The pub owner tinkles a drinking glass with a teaspoon and the girls cautiously circle.
Sahara throws punches, Jasmine ducks and weaves and incredibly, not a punch lands. Sahara is frustrated, she gets bolder and another flurry of punches is avoided by a very slippery Jasmine, who lands hard rib and belly punches dodging and weaving in the confined space. Sahara winces from the hits, not much of the force is absorbed by the small gloves.
The crowd appreciates Jasmine's incredible timing and each time she avoids, or lands, a punch, they applaud loudly.
Sahara keeps finding the air with her punches, she must feel she's entered another dimension and looks....... kind of.......... lost!
Slippery Jasmine takes advantage of Sahara's faltering confidence landing hard shots on Sahara's face, immediately opening up cuts. The blood is now beginning to flow and still Sahara cannot engage Jasmine for payback.
Jasmine weaves away from Sahara with a touch of cheeky show-boating and lands another telling punch.
How Jasmine can do what she is doing in that confined space is awesome and I can now understand why she is heavily fancied.
For nearly two minutes Jasmine pounds on Sahara's face which is a bloody mess, her torso, breasts and rib area reddened and bruised, her wild punches easily avoided, throwing them so hard to the point of exposing her back as Jasmine's punches finds her liver and kidney areas.
The older woman, a slick street fighter with uncanny reflexes lands a hard right to the body and a vicious uppercut to Sahara's jaw putting her, head hanging on her knees, to the concrete floor.
Knees lacerated and bleeding from scraping the concrete floor, Sahara looks beaten but pig-headedly she rises to her feet: she should stay down!
Jasmine show-boats as she pummels Sahara's weakening body held up by the wall, glancing to her fans between the solid hits.
Finally using her head and not her brave heart, Sahara unforgivably forces the first clinch, throwing her arms around Jasmine and hugging her close ( many a good fight has been destroyed by clinching but since it's women, I see the benefits ) to loud boos from the crowd.
Sahara is trying to retain her dignity, rather than to try and swap punches at which she is failing miserably.
She will never give in to defeat, though I want her to do so, quickly, but she would never forgive herself.
Apart from a few head and body punches in the clinches, Sahara lands little on Jasmine and vice versa but her efforts to push Sahara away from the clinch is taking a frustrating toll, boring for the crowd but the clinch was keeping Sahara on her feet and still in the fight.
Frankly, Jasmine was failing to put her away.
In the fourth minute Jasmine was not getting out of the path of Sahara's efforts to punch her, as quickly.
A stray uppercut snaps the slowing Jasmine's head back, Sahara's first solid punch and Jasmine looks wobbly and unsure.
' Are we into new territory, ' I thought.
I could see the shadow of tiredness in Jasmine's movements and Sahara must have seen it too, though how she could, beats me, because both her eyes look closed.
Sahara right-hooks Jasmine's jaw three times to one stomach punch and I could see Sahara's confidence returning. Woop Woop!
Has she left it too late, they are tiring. Sahara is definitely looking more positive as hard rights and lefts smack into Jasmine's face, her red lipstick, now smearing and mingling with blood from face cuts.
A straight right from Sahara put Jasmine on her cute bum.
She looks reluctant: waving her arms, she's had enough and wants to stay down but the howling crowd, sensing the money draining from their pockets, eggs her up. Sahara also beckons her up, she has not finished with Jasmine: she reluctantly rises.
Jasmine's hands are down as Sahara's somehow dredges enough energy to punch Jasmine around the concrete walls; the stomach, the ribs, the head, in payback for what she has suffered and strangely Jasmine is remaining compliantly generous to maintain her dignity in front of her fans.
Another hard left hook to the face and Jasmine hits the concrete on her knees.
The corners have to drag Sahara off Jasmine, it's over.
The girls look as if they'd been savaged by a wild beast. Their backs and legs bleeding from lacerations caused by the unforgiving rough-cast concrete walls and floor. Their bodies and faces cut and bloodied; Sahara's by the skill of Jasmine during most of the fight, Jasmine's by the stamina and patience of Sahara in the last minute.
The older Jasmine may well have beaten Sahara in a normal three round boxing match but the single-round fight gives a girl who is losing, a chance to make a come-back, just as the brave Sahara had done: so Jasmine took the fight on points but Sahara gets the win on a TKO retired verdict.
Her stamina and willingness to take the punishment from better fighters worked again for Sahara. I spoke to her later, much later.
' My first match, I can only get better, I'm not in it to lose,' she told me, a bit nasally.
I reckon Jasmine just chose the wrong fight discipline, she'd do really well anywhere else but the punishing Quarter Pound Her league's attraction, is of course, the extra money.
I did venture to suggest to Sahara when she left the pub later that Lacey would be an interesting fight for her en-route to the championship.
Her reply, ' I'm hoping I'll meet her in the final but that's a long way off and I'll be ready for whatever that Lacey bitch thinks she can throw at me any time she wants. Boxing, cat-fight, wrestling or street fight, I'll teach her a lesson no matter what.'
Lacey has yet to reply - surely she reads my bulletin?
Jasmine e mailed me the next day with a follow-up, ' She ( Sahara ) fought dirty, I got over-excited when she started that stupid clinching and I lost my way. I'll work on that and she won't get to me next time.'
Personally, I hope it will all happen sooner rather than later.
No comments:
Post a Comment