One of the boxers appeared to make him so irritated he pulled him aside and stepped in his place, showing him the correct footwork. He threw some practice punches on the other fighter and had the other fighter throw some punches back to demonstrate the technique.
“Son, you can throw ‘em faster,” he barked. “You won’t hit me.”
The other fighter obliged, though Clint was right. He wasn’t getting touched.
“Alright,” he bellowed in his raspy voice. “Again.”
He backed up and watched them. After another couple of minutes of sparring, he finally acknowledged us. “You the guy on the phone?” he called, keeping his back to us.
I looked to Hunter, who had been observing carefully. “Yeah,” he answered.
Clint turned to us now for a moment, looking over his shoulder. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Hunter nodded but said nothing, since Clint had already turned back to the action in the ring. He appeared to be a man of few words.
The fighters took a break a few minutes later, and Clint got down from the ring to greet us. After introductions and some handshakes, he got right to business. “So what can I do for you?” he asked.
Hunter pursed his lips for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, I just wanted to check the place out and see if there was anything I might be able to help with.”
“Did you now?” Clint asked, his eyebrows raised and a small smirk on his face. “Find anything? Been meanin’ to get that ring painted up . . .”
His tone was skeptical bordering on humorous, but Hunter soldiered on. I had always admired his ability to let it roll off his back when someone wasn’t taking him seriously. “I was actually just watching those two kids wrestle,” he replied.
The smirk left Clint’s face and was replaced by his previous seriousness. “And?”
“I think I could probably help them out.”
Clint squinted. “You mean coach them?”
Hunter nodded. “Yeah. Their technique has a lot of holes, and I figure with the way the fight game’s going these days you’re going to have a lot of kids who wanna do MMA. If you wanna do mixed martial arts, you better have good wrestling or someone is gonna take you down and kick your ass. Doesn’t matter how good your boxing is if you’re on your back.”
“I’ve seen some of this cage fighting stuff,” Clint said, definitely interested now. “You know all that, then?”
Hunter smiled. “Yeah, I know it.”
“How do I know you know it?”
I pursed my lips. Was Hunter going to have to fight again?
“Got anyone here you think could wrestle me?” Hunter asked.
The air left my lungs. It looked like he would.
“Right now?”
“Why not?”
Clint shrugged and looked around. “What do you weigh?”
“About two-ten.”
“Alright. Only guy I have is Yevgeny, but he’s probably closer to two-fifty and knows his wrestling. If you really want to, have at it.”
My eyebrows shot up. Did he say two-fifty? That was like NFL football player big. I grabbed Hunter’s arm to tell him I didn’t think this was a good idea, but I was too late.
“Yeah,” Hunter said. “Let’s do it.”
My stomach dropped. We all went over to one of the free wrestling mats, then Clint went to go get Yevgeny from where he was working on a punching bag. The boxers working around the gym got wind of what was going on and gathered round the mat before Yevgeny had even arrived.
Yevgeny finally came, followed closely by Clint. Yevgeny was a college-aged guy about the same age as me and Hunter, and enormous. He wasn’t anywhere near as ripped as Hunter was, but he was bigger. The white undershirt he wore was at least a double XL and it still fit tight around his arms. His short hair sat atop a thick brow, and his expression signaled nothing but confidence.
Hunter had taken off his sweatshirt and was now wearing an undershirt and jeans. He seemed to be sizing Yevgeny up, undisturbed by what he saw.
“Hunter,” I whispered, grabbing his arm. “Do you think think this is a good idea?”
He patted my hand and gently freed himself from my grasp. “Yeah, it’ll be fine. It’s just a friendly spar and it’s wrestling so they’re not gonna hit me. I meant what I said when I told you I’m serious about taking care of myself. We won’t get too rough.”
I hesitated, but I didn’t say anything else. It didn’t make me happy, but I couldn’t set limits for Hunter. I had to let him make his own choices.
With a final smile back at me, Hunter stepped onto the mat and waited for Yevgeny to do the same. Yevgeny stepped on with a wry smile on his face.
On Clint’s signal, the two men crashed together. I watched Hunter’s arms as they flexed, straining against his larger opponent. Even in his jeans, his butt looked amazing while he was bent down trying to get under Yevgeny’s center of gravity.
It all happened in an instant. Hunter stood up straight, pulling Yevgeny toward him quickly. Then he swiveled his hips around and turned, his back bulging as he brought Yevgeny forward until he tripped on Hunter’s trail leg and fell down to the mat on his back. Yevgeny’s eyes bulged in surprise as Hunter came crashing down on top of him for the pin.
I didn’t know much about wrestling, but that looked impressive.
The room went silent as the gym’s fighters watched their best get put on his back. Clint’s voice thundered through the quiet and brought everyone back to reality.
“Very nice,” he cried. “Again!”
I watched with lips pursed as Hunter and Yevgeny got up to wrestle again. The two men came together at Clint’s signal, and grappled back and forth for a while, but eventually Hunter was able to pull the same move. This time there was some appreciate murmuring from the fighters around the ring.
“Alright,” Clint said. “One more time. Yevgeny, are you gonna let him keep doing the same move on you?”
Yevgeny’s face was red with a combination of embarrassment and exertion. He was scowling when the two men came together for a third time. I held my breath as I watched the now familiar grappling, hoping Hunter could pull off the same move. He seemed to really want this job with Clint and coaching would definitely be a more productive use of his fighting skills than the MMA he had been doing before.
This time, when Hunter stood up Yevgeny didn’t go with him. Instead he seemed to disengage from Hunter’s grasp and come at Hunter in a more controlled manner.