Part I
After being slapped around most of your life you get a clue and walk into that MMA/Muay Thai/Brazilian JiuJitsu/ place on the corner. You sit for a while at a cheap desk with a dark foreigner who wears a black gi, and he speaks in a heavy accent about all the champs he's produced. Getting on with it, you hastily fill out the requisite paperwork. You're fitted for a gi. You're thrown into the class. Takedowns. Punches. Kicks. Submission Holds. The weeks and months roll along the way they always do, until one day the Foreigner In The Gi announces...you're ready to compete! One Hundred Dollars Entrance Fee and a little more paperwork and you're in! You'll be fighting MMA! The date: Four Weeks from Tommorow. The month passes, you train, run, eat it and sleep it. You spar and grapple with your fellow students. You're ready! The appointed Saturday Morning arrives and you're gonna kick some ass. You hardly slept a wink the night before, but you're running on adrenaline. You pack all your MMA shit into your gym bag and head down to the Masonic Hall where this shindig is being held. It's a bright, sunny morning, and the parking lot is full of Fighters. Men who have been training for this glorious day. The ultimate test of skill, strength and endurance awaits inside the cage. The crowd is herded into a side door and a line forms. You scan the group, looking for clues as to where you really stand: There are white landscaper types with ornate tattoos about the shoulders, dark foreign types who exude smug confidence...You register. You go to a bulletin board to see who you're fighting...who you've been pitted against. You find your name! And next to yourname you see your opponent' name: Branch Warren!
