He went down, hard. The crowd went silent, every nerve in the stadium tuned to the man fallen to the mat. He was the underdog, the surprise, the one no one expected to make it, or, honestly even knew. He was supposed to just make up the numbers, lose in the first round. Every one looked at him weirdly when they saw him train with such dedication outside his tent each morning before his first fight. ‘didn’t he know these were the best fighters in all the land, and that he was just meant to lose, no matter how hard he trained, these guys were just better, and if he was anywhere near their class, they’d have heard of him. They hadn’t, so why was he working out like he mattered?’ He didn’t notice, the poor guy had a tough time counting, keeping track of the number of push ups he was doing, so he focused on doing just that, counting. The push up part was much easier.
But he had one the first fight, and from a upset victor, to a new prospect, to a real contender, the verdict on him kept changing, as he progressed in the brackets, up the knock tables. Of course, no one really thought he was any good for the finals, and no one had put any real money on him, except a few hopefuls, and his mother, ‘He’s my son, what can I do, but back him up, I mean, I’ve taken care of him for all these years, and if I don’t support him, who will? So why shouldn’t I put my money, where my son is? And anyway, if he loses, he’ll come home to me, and with the amount he eats, I’ll have lost the amount of I’m betting in about a week… so it’s pretty even either way’ No one else was asking for his odds, a few were asking for his name though, and perhaps that was the bigger gain.
