章 23: Forward Forward Forward!
A rush of heavy blows forced Vincent to keep stepping back. Each strike carried enough power and weight to keep him off balance. The few blows that slipped through his guard from the sheer number and speed, were the key strikes that kept him unstable. Saw Paing's fighting style was straightforward just like his personality.
'He's loud though.'
Understanding the full scope of his rhythm—hearing the beat of his life is difficult through the volume of his opponent's roar. He can concentrate, but there's still too much noise.
Wow, he never expected there'd be such a weakness.
Vincent sucked in a deep breath and leapt back.
"YOU CAN'T RUN!!"
The amount of distance made was immediately crossed by a charging bull. It didn't matter how far Vincent traveled, his opponent would pursue him until he fell.
It wasn't to flee, however.
Vincent's right knee was already raised. It was clenched tight as if it was prepared to strike a foe, but the distance between the two wasn't enough. The foreigner stopped his backwards motion with his other leg and instantly put his center of gravity on it.
He was moving backward with his momentum, but it immediately shifted forward. From retreating to attacking while he grounded himself in place. Vincent's center of gravity was rooted to the ground by that single solid leg,
The momentum of Saw Paing's charge was stopped by the full extension of Vincent's right leg. He buried his foot in the Burmese fighter's abdomen and sent him backwards, gaining additional breathing room.
"Hey, that was a pretty good kick! I'M ON FIRE NOW!! LET'S KEEP GOING AND GOING!!!" Saw Paing's volume going out for a brief moment was enough to show that his attack did have some effect, but his inner fire once again exploded with a roar showing that there was much more life to chip away before he fell.
Vincent smiled. "Alrighty then, I'll keep going with you until you burn out."
Saw Paing's tactics didn't change. There was no need for him to change them. The bareknuckle combat he's practiced never taught him to shy away from any injury. He takes them head on and pushes through!
Vincent decided to take a page out of his book and met him halfway. His fist flew straight past his opponent, their arms just grazing by each other. They struck each other at the same time.
It was the meeting of two bullets scraping right by each other and striking the opposition true.
It was easy to tell from an observer's point of view whose strike was more effective. Vincent being pushed back more than Saw Paing also gave them the understanding that he was at a disadvantage in this fight.
They didn't let that sway their judgment though. This match was still up in the air.
"What was that movement?" one of the observers asked aloud. "Can you really stop all momentum with a single leg and transfer it to a leg that was already raised? He was being pushed back."
He wasn't a fighter in the Kengan Matches, but he wasn't a rookie to combat. Vincent's maneuver was extremely strange. It looked desperate, but that control over one's balance was masterful. Not just that, but it requires one to have a great deal of control over manipulating their own flow of power.
"He should've just waited until the other guy got closer and then pull him down into a hold.
He's seen enough matches to piece together the fact that Vincent must he a grappling specialist. So, why doesn't he grapple more? It's not adding up.
He doesn't understand, so he can only continue watching.
He didn't understand.
Because he didn't understand, his conclusion was inaccurate.
Vincent is not a striking specialist, that much is true. He also isn't a grappling specialist. If one is to personally ask him what he specializes in, he would respond in a simple manner.
Sandbag.
It's not due to low self-confidence or humbleness. He prides himself in taking blows without falling. However, his perception of his own skills aren't accurate. They've been skewed off the average because of the fighters he surrounded himself in the past.
He doesn't specialize in anything. He doesn't have the arrogance to call himself a specialist in any form of combat with the monsters he's seen.
He's an all-rounder. A jack of all trades who hasn't properly mastered one thing. Despite that, he's taken every single role in combat to an extremely high degree.
Saw Paing didn't see it coming. He was pushing him back again and then he saw his opponent's right arm twitch. He stepped and punched forward, a cross made with the turning of his hips. He was going for a knockout blow.
The fastest of all strikes in any martial art – the jab. It is also known as the Kizami-zuki in japanese karate.
Vincent didn't see it coming. He was being pushed back. His opponents fighting spirit and confidence were at the pinnacle because he was basically unarmed while Vincent was struggling to get a good blow in. The battle was slowly being decided from the rush of powerful blows delivered all over his body. It seemed like one good blow to the head would put him down.
The American made use of the assumption built up in his opponent's head and slipped right through his confident strike. He projected a lightning fast strike that exceeded his opponent's reactions. It landed squarely on his jaw.
Potent pain surged from his right middle and index fingers as Saw Paing took a few step backs from the sudden blow.
Vincent couldn't help but bring his hand in eye's view.
"Woah."
They weren't quite broken, but he might've hit him too forcefully while forgetting the fact that his head was supposed to be hard. That toughness was off the charts.
"SURPRISED HUH?!" He then looked at his opponent who cockily pointed at his head. "That's the exact strength of Lethwei! It's our greatest armor and our greatest weapon!!"
"Well now." Vincent smiled through the pain. Fingers and toes are among the most sensitive parts of the human body to pain, so it was kinda difficult for him to keep a straight face. He weathered it fine still.
He continued to ball that damaged hand into a fist.
"I'm pretty hardheaded myself!"
He threw that exact same fist straight at Saw Paing's head much to everyone's surprise.
'I'll break through that armor!'
The Burmese boxer bent his knees and rooted himself to the ground, taking the strike with his forehead. He grinned at Vincent's fighting spirit and felt his own surge even higher.
"YOU'RE PRETTY GUTSY, BUT I'M GONNA WIN!!!" He pushed forward and bounced the strike off his head. Blood spurted from his two fingers that were damaged even further. Vincent tried to escape again, but it was no use this time.
"YOU'RE MINE!"
"Ah."
Vincent was held in place by the shoulders. Saw Paing's ironclad grip couldn't be broken free in a short amount of time, but that brief moment was all the man needed. Saw Paing struck with a rising knee after securing his opponent in a clinch.
Lethwei wasn't Muay Thai, but it was nigh-identical. Elbows, knees, and clinches are all apart of the martial art known as the Art of Nine Limbs.
However, Vincent did not forget this.
'Huh?'
The feedback from a powerful blow wasn't felt by Saw Paing. As a matter of fact he couldn't even feel the ground beneath his foot. A sense of weightlessness assailed the fighter as he belatedly realized his knee missed its mark somehow.
It just went a too high instead of more forward like it was supposed to. By the time he realized what happened, his grip instinctively tightened on his opponent as he fell. As Vincent was pulled down with him, the American dropped on his chest with the full weight behind his elbow.
Vincent was no lightweight. With his own strength magnified by gravity, it was a blow that not only should've pounded the air out of Saw Paing from his hard crash to the ground by the strike, but it also should've done some real damage to his sternum.
Turning around a fight in an instant while at a disadvantage. How could something like that be nothing but pure entertainment to the crowd of people watching this underground match.
Fighters, civilians, everyone alike had their fighting spirits set aflame by Saw Paing and the blood spilling out of fighters was the oil fueling their flame.
But there was a single person watching this who felt nothing at all. Through the lens of a security camera sat a thin man in front of a computer observing the entirety of the fight.
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