That was a title worth something, that was pride. Every single fight Julian had been in he was a successor. He triumphed and he always thanked one thing for it. That thing was Natalia. She had been with him through everything since they were children growing up, both being bullied through school for their social stature and Mexican heritage. They didn’t have money like the people that surrounded them, they came from broken homes. That meant they attached to each other more than anything else.
He grew up fighting, and she stood by him, she was the one that turned it into his career. She never stopped believing in him and that alone made it easy for him to fall in love. Completely in love. To the point when he found out she was pregnant he felt no fear, he felt nothing other than happiness. But that happiness was cut short when a disgruntled loser from a match the night before had come at him with a gun, and accidentally firing it so a round went straight into the abdomen of the woman that meant more to him that anything.
Losing Natalia changed the course of every single fight he had. Although he was still winning, he was getting himself hurt more often than usual. He was barely blocking himself. He was only letting hits come in until he became so angry that he fought back until he won. That wasn’t strategy, that was dangerous. Unhealthy. But it was the only way he was holding himself up.
That changed one night. One night after the only person he had left was sick, his mother. One night that was the anniversary of the love of his life and his child perished because of him. Everyone from his manager to his friends tried to talk him out of it but he wasn’t going to listen. He refused to listen. Fighting was all that he had left and he never backed down from a challenge. Even when he should have.
In the ring he met someone he upset years before when he was still considered lightweight, but both of them had bulked up and managed their training to move up in weight class and were finally getting a rematch. From the first round Julian knew he wasn’t on his game. He was struggling. He had taken hits and found bruises on his arms and abdomen forming not long after the hits they were so hard. They were enough to knock him down and barely be able to stand up. Every time he did he saw her. Every time his eyes closed her face was in his mind.
It was something he was telling himself but somehow it was in Natalia’s voice. Ringing through his mind, her telling him to get up, her telling him to stay away from fighting until he wasn’t breaking at every punch. The voice of the woman in his head and the image of her smile was the only thing that kept him from completely passing out and giving up. From hoping the next punch would hit him just right and end it all.
He couldn’t take the hits anymore. He couldn’t take the stress anymore. He couldn’t fight back anymore. Before the fists could impale him into hospitalization the referee forced the fight into a stop and raised his opponents hand as the victor as he struggled to even stand back up, even with his hands inside of the cage. He was thankful it was over. Even if it took away his undefeated title. Because that was the only time he had been able to see her face and not break, but have hope instead.
Natalia did nothing but support him. One thing he had almost forgotten when she died was that no matter how low he got she wouldn’t ever let him stay there. But being this low in the thing he called his career was awakening. It was the only thing that picked him up even when he was weak and beaten. It allowed him to shake the hand of the fighter he had just given the win to.
Both of his mouth and nose were bleeding, he felt like there was a possibility his ribs had been cracked. He was in pain but because of her he still stood, he still forced a smile, and he still let himself not be completely ruined. The only light he had was still with him and he would hold onto that fact.
“In a few weeks I want a rematch.”
