One Fall

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  Joey stood up first. As quickly as he could, he rolled back into the ring. Goliath was already on his knees, struggling to his feet. Joey fell into him, hoping to catch Goliath in some sort of hold before he had a chance to get up.

  The two men collided, then thrashed to the floor, each attempting to lock in a wrestling hold. Joey succeeded first, getting Goliath in an armbar. Goliath groaned in pain, then realized where he was and grabbed the ropes.

  “One..two...” Grant counted out.

  Technically, Joey had a five-count to release the hold, but at two, Grant reached and broke the hold himself, prying Joey’s hands free of Goliath’s arm. The crowd, many of whom now recognized that this was a real fight, booed.

  As soon as Grant broke the hold, Goliath whipped around and slapped Joey in a headlock, which gradually turned into a choke. Seeing that the ref was doing nothing, Joey reached with his foot for the rope, and got it.

  Still nothing from the ref. He had clearly seen Joey’s foot on the rope, but was pretending he hadn’t.

  The crowd went into a near panic. Hot dogs and plastic cups and crumpled program notes sailed into the ring. Grant raised his hands to count, “One.”

  After an unusually long pause, Grant counted, “Two.”

  Joey couldn’t breathe at all, and the flow of blood to his brain had slowed to a trickle.

  “Three.”

  He was dizzy. He was fading.

  “Four.”

  His vision was failing. The world was breaking up, as if Joey’s eyes were coated with frosted glass.

  “Five.”

  Right before Grant voiced the five-count, Goliath broke the hold, and Joey flopped face-first into the mat. The crowd was silent.

  Goliath rolled Joey onto his stomach, then pressed a hand on each of Joey’s shoulders to pin him. Grant flew into position and slapped the mat.

  He slapped the mat again. The crowd screamed “Two!” Joey lifted his foot and put it on the bottom rope. As soon as his boot crossed the invisible boundary at the ring ropes, the crowd erupted in elation, lest the ref didn’t notice. The crowd’s noise left Grant no choice but to point at Joey’s foot and stop the count.

  Undeterred, Goliath grabbed Joey by the hair and pulled. This spot, so common in worked wrestling matches, took on a new form in this shoot fight. Through his exhaustion, Joey had to hop to his feet and follow Goliath, or else have his hair pulled out of his head.

  Once in the center of the ring, Goliath slapped Joey into a front face lock, both men standing and hunched over, Joey’s head surrounded by Goliath’s massive arm. Joey knew it was over. His attempt had been valiant, but it wasn’t meant to be.

  As if in agreement, Grant leaned his head in underneath Goliath to whisper to Joey, “This match is over Joey, you’ve just submitted.”

  Grant’s words awakened something, something that was within Joey, hidden until now, but forcefully present, as if it had been waiting to be tapped Joey’s entire life. It was a reserve of energy, unavailable before, but discovered in the anger. Joey was angry that after all this pain, all this effort, the match would end again with him getting screwed. Without even the dignity of submitting for real, Joey was going to lose this match because Grant was now on Goliath’s side, and was going to call for the bell as if Joey had just submitted.

  He couldn’t tolerate it. And with the final strength left in his body, Joey reached forward and locked his arms around Goliath’s right leg and pushed upward with his back. Continuing the motion, using only the muscles in his own abdomen, Joey snapped Goliath off the ground and through the air into a fisherman’s suplex, instantly reversing the tide. When they landed, Goliath was on his back, shoulders down, and Joey was covering him, with the leg hooked, in a perfect bridge.

  The crowd burst with joyful noise. Grant however, was deliberately slow to react, and had he begun the count in time, the match would have finished, with Joey winning by pinfall. As it were, Grant made it to a slow “Two,” before Goliath was able to push Joey off of him. In a normal match, this sort of near fall would instantly deflate the crowd. In this match, however, the crowd responded with vehemence, booing loudly at the obvious cheating of the referee.

  Both men stumbled to their knees, then their feet. Without great force, Goliath kicked Joey in the left side. Joey was too slow to block it. With slightly more force, Goliath kicked Joey’s right side. Joey felt the air leave his lungs. The next one, whatever it was, would send him back to the mat, and he wouldn’t be able to get up.

  The next one was a closed-fist punch. Fortunately, Goliath was slow, and Joey was able to duck. Goliath’s right arm swung over Joey’s head, and his momentum swung him around half-way, enough for Joey to rush in behind him and snatch his left arm into another hammerlock, the same hold that opened the match.

  Joey didn’t have enough strength to press in the hammerlock completely, but Goliath didn’t have enough strength to break out. Goliath fell to his knees in pain. The crowd cheered, sensing that victory for Joey, who had played the babyface in this fight by virtue of the biased referee, was near.