Below The Belt

Round 16

Tyreek's POV

If you thought I was nervous to sign that contract, imagine how nervous I was for my first fight.

"The nigga's name is Niko O'Brien. He's taller than you, 6'2, weighs less than you, though." Quan explained to me. We were sitting in my room with him sitting on my bed looking up as much information about my first pro match while I sat on the floor packing my bags. My first fight was in Vegas at Caesars Palace, so I had to pack some bags to go... And if you thought I didn't tell DeAndre and Antwon to pack their shit too, you're insane. I need my babies to go everywhere with me, and both of them were so clingy I knew if I didn't ask them to go they'd never let me hear the end of it. "He'll have more reach on you, but you're used to that. Look at this." He turned his laptop around to show me the screen. It was a video of two men fighting in a ring. "Green shorts is your opponent. He's slow but he hits hard. You already know how to handle that."

"He hits hard, I hit fast." I mumbled the mantra that Quan had drilled into my head. "He's right handed. He leaves his left side too open and mostly swings with his right." I acknowledged as I multitasked between watching the video and packing my clothes. "He overuses his reach. He never gets close, so he gets predictable." I leaned closer to the screen and squinted my eyes, then chuckled and shook my head. "Sloppy ass footwork- This who y'all got me fightin'?"

Quan laughed and turned the laptop back around. "You a rookie, remember? You gotta fight with the rest of the rookies, no matter how good you are. Be lucky you're already heavy enough to be fighting heavyweight because I've seen some of the rookies in the other weight classes and... Man." His expression made me laugh.

I heard my phone ding from somewhere in the room, and soon I saw Quan fish it out from under some of the clothes on my bed. "It's Dre. He said he and Antwon are almost done packin'-" Another ding, and Quan rolled his eyes. "Now Antwon is textin' sayin' his daddy's a liar and that he's almost done but Dre isn't."

I couldn't help but laugh at their antics. Should've known Dre wouldn't want to pack with his lazy ass. He needed to hurry up before he fucked around and got left.

"Now Marcus is textin'. He said you a fake ass friend for not givin' everybody a weeks notice before this shit." I chuckled again and shook my head. Life has been frantic, and in that time I had kind of sort of forgotten to tell my friends about all this shit going down. Now Marcus was being dramatic about it. He said Dre was his new best friend and everything- I'm pretty sure that was true before now though. Marcus said he and Dre had a 'sister bond' now, which is wild because I thought we had a sister bond... I guess being bottoms makes for better bonding than just being gay.

"Tell him I said suck my dick and that's what he gets for replacin' me with my man." I watched as he typed in my phone, probably typing the exact opposite of what I said. "And tell Dre to pack his damn bag before I leave him."

Quan started typing, then he stopped, gave me a deadpan expression, and started to delete what he typed. "Yo whipped, stupid in love ass ain't leavin' that nigga." He mumbled, making me laugh as he tossed my phone back on the bed. "You gon' show off for your first fight or let it go to decision?"

I scoffed immediately and cut my eyes at him. "Nigga I'm going for TKO, the fuck? I hate fightin' 'til decision." Fighting until decision meant fighting until the end of all the rounds without knocking out your opponent. Then it went to the judges and their little scorecards. Basically, majority vote wins. It's bullshit and I've seen a lot of fighters get robbed by going to decisions.

"You right." Quan laughed. "Dumbass question. That'll be a good way to get your name out there, though. Cocky confident fighter from Georgia makes his debut in Vegas with a TKO? You'll be talk of the town for sure."