Rocky and LouAnn walk into the gym on S. Broadway near 108th."LouAnn, I'll only be a minute. You can wait in the car if you want. I bet on these guys so I need to talk to the trainers, and watch them workout."
"'S'okay. I don't mind. Like to kinda see." She waves her hands in the air to dry her nails, bright red, red like her lips.
"Hey, Rocky," says a voice by the ring.
"Benny." Rocky waves. "LouAnn, have a seat. I'll be right back."
Rocky moves down the aisle to the ring. "Jab, Johnny jab. Your left, come on, left, left, jab, jab, jab."
LouAnn sits back and blows on her nails. Every guy in the place looks at her, her halter top and high heels. She looks around, blinks, and smiles.
And they all felt it, that jolt of LouAnn-ity. Pancho in the corner skipping rope, suddenly does doubles and cross overs. The two on the treadmill shift into double time, there are one handed pushups, and the kid at the speed bag starts using his elbow, all motion, loud groans, look at me, LouAnn, look at me.
Even Johnny shows his stiff left jab.
Rocky shakes Benny's hand. "I brought LouAnn. She'll make these guys work twice as hard."
"Benny smiles. "Please, bring her by more often. Look at 'em. They never do that for me. Talk about a work out." Then his smile fades. "But guess you don't have to be that good anymore."
"Yeah," says Rocky. "I saw it too. Pacquiao won, no question....Jab Johnny, jab. Good, good."
"Bradley knew he'd lost," said Benny. "You could tell the way he acted. Said he had to go back and watch the tape, see if he'd won. What's that all about?"
"Think it was fixed to build the gate for a re-match? Big mistake. Nobody cares about Bradley. He'll just get beat up in the next fight, even worse."
The two look toward the fighter in the ring.
"The fight game ain't no game," says Rocky. "It's a business. Like everything else, money runs the show. Like that's some kind of a surprise."
"Got no one to complain to either. Boxing's like that. Guess Don King's in charge. What are you going to do?"
Lou Ann sits and looks at her nails. She blows on her fingers, drying the polish. Johnny looks over at her, exposes his jaw, gets tagged by a right cross. He stumbles.
"Johnny, focus man, focus. Jab, jab...you're right about the fight. Bradley was okay, he did his best, you could see, but Pacquiao is the real Champion. Bradley hasn't lost a fight, but no question, he got beat. And beat bad. Leaned in the entire fight, clinching, holding the back of Pacquiao's head."
"Fifty bucks gone," says Benny. "I should've known."
"Heard on the radio coming over here, best thing for Bradley's career, is to man up, and give the belt back. He's got good guy image. He knows it's the right thing to do. It's the smart thing to do. Boxing fans won't forget him. He'll get all kinds of endorsements."
"Rocky, come on," says LouAnn. "I gotta get back. You said lunch. I only got so much time."
"We just got here. What do you got to get back to, LouAnn?"
"Stuff, Rocky. I'm...doing stuff this afternoon. Okay?" She blew again on her fingers, holding them at arms length.
"I'm sorry. Your right. I promised lunch. Gimme a minute."
Rocky watched Johnny. "Keep that left up, Johnny. Your left. It sets up everything. Good, good, jab, jab, jab."
"Now show him your right, Johnny." says Benny.
He connects with the right, pow, then a wild left uppercut. It misses, and he stumbles again. "Left jab, Johnny. Jab, jab, jab," says Rocky and Benny.
"Johnny'll do well," says Rocky, "If he jabs that left." He slaps the canvas.
"Okay, I'll be back. I want to talk to some of these guys. Let them know how I feel about the fight. They all saw it. Some might just say screw it, why work out, the best isn't good enough anymore, because fights are fixed, the judges are in the bag."
"Did you see they let Bradley hook his arm around Pacquiao and punching him in the ribs? Ref didn't do nothin'? It's corruption plain and simple, Rocky. I was really shocked. Pacquiao was way faster."
"Boxing needs new faces, what with Mayweather in prison," says Rocky. "But not like this. Bradley was confused a the end. Thought he'd lost?"
"Guess you need a KO to win," says Benny. "Can't just out class a guy anymore."
"Benny, I gotta go. But when I get back I'm just going to tell your guys to watch the fight, and forget the decision. Let them watch Pacquiao. That's how you want to fight."
"Rock-eeeeee," says Lou Ann. She opens her compact, and touches her lip with her little finger. "We gotta go." She looks around again and smiles. They watch, breathe deeply, grimace and sweat just a little more.
Rocky waves. "Coming, Sweety."
Then to Benny. "Here's what I think happened. If it was fixed for Bradley, he didn't seem to know about it. He fought so poorly. Nobody will get excited now about a re-match. Strange. They didn't even try to disguise it. What I think is that two of the three judges, they're really old guys, met in a back room at the Flamingo, somewhere, and worked out how they would score it. No body else knew. They took a chance that Pacquiao would KO Bradley, but they bet big on Bradley, and won big. Only...the only way... I can think of."
Rocky shakes Benny's hand, looks up at Johnny, and motions with his left. He smiles, takes LouAnn's hand, and they go up the aisle. LouAnn hugs his arm.
"Let's drive out to Beverly Hills. I'm thinking Lobster."
"Sure, why not." He takes a deep breath. "Anything you want, Sweety."
LouAnn looks back over her shoulder and waves. Everybody in the gym waves back.
.............................
Help comes from:
cnn.com/2012/06/11/sport/philippines-pacquiao,
espn.go.com/blog/new-york/boxing/post,
WikiPedia/Manny Pacquiao, Google/Images
vancouversun.com/sports/Pacquiao+Bradley
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