Wrestling

Ray Jr forced his elbow to lock his arm upright through willpower, his fist trembling in the air above his head, refusing to fall. A guttural sound tore out of him, something between a growl and a scream, and he drove backward with everything left in his legs, slamming Nakamuro into the turnbuckle behind them once again.

The hold broke.

Nakamuro gasping, his own hands shaking now from the effort of holding the sleeper as long as he had. Both men stood several feet apart, neither one able to immediately capitalize.

[Tanaka: He fought out of it! I don’t know how, but he fought out of it!]

[Braxton: I don’t know how much longer either one of these men can keep this up.]

Nakamuro was the first to move, but Ray Jr ducked under on pure instinct alone more than anything, and answered with a boot to the gut. It folded the veteran over. Ray hooked Nakamuro’s head and hit a snap suplex that dropped him on his neck and back.

Nakamuro was rolling onto his stomach, dragging himself an inch at a time toward the ropes.

The chant started and spread fast, thousands of voices picking it up in waves.

"Ray Jr! Ray Jr! Ray Jr!"

Ray Jr’s head turned toward the sound, his masked face lifting toward the crowd for just a moment before locking back onto Nakamuro.

He staggered slowly toward his opponent, dragging one leg slightly behind him. Nakamuro rose to meet him, throwing a desperate forearm that Ray Jr blocked with his arm.

Ray Jr answered with two of his own, then a third that opened a small cut above Nakamuro’s eyebrow.

Blood trickled down into Nakamuro’s eye. He blinked it away, snarling, and threw a headbutt that Ray Jr barely avoided by pulling his head back at the last possible second.

Nakamuro’s own momentum carried him forward. Ray Jr grabbed the opening and hit a snap neckbreaker that folded the bigger man backward onto his neck and shoulders.

[Braxton: Neckbreaker by Ray Jr. That neck of Nakamuro has taken a lot of punishment.]

Both men were down again, sprawled on opposite sides of the ring.

Ray Jr pulled himself up, his whole frame trembling with the effort.

Nakamuro had rolled onto his hands and knees, dragging his battered leg beneath him.

Both men rose at nearly the same moment, facing each other across the width of the ring, neither one with much left to give and both of them knowing it.

Nakamuro wiped his jaw with the back of his hand.

"Let’s end this."

"Come on!" Nakamuro answered, his accent thick with exhaustion.

Nakamuro moved first, throwing a stiff forearm that connected clean across Ray Jr’s jaw. The impact rocked him back a step, but he answered immediately with one of his own, catching Nakamuro across the cheek hard enough to snap his head sideways.

Neither man backed off.

They stood toe to toe in the center of the ring, trading strikes without any pretense of technique left in either of them, just two exhausted bodies refusing to be the one who stopped first.

Ray threw a forearm. Nakamuro answered with a chop to the chest.

Ray fired back. Nakamuro landed a headbutt that rocked Ray Jr’s masked face sideways.

[Braxton: These two are just standing here trading blows. No defense left in either man.]

[Tanaka: This is what happens when fighting spirit outlasts the body, Braxton. Neither one wants to be the one who backs down.]

The strikes echoed sharply through the arena, sweat and small flecks of blood flying with each impact. Ray Jr’s legs wobbled after a stiff chop to the chest, but he stayed upright, driving a forearm into Nakamuro’s jaw that finally sent the veteran down to one knee.

Nakamuro shook his head, trying to clear it and climb back to his feet. He caught Ray Jr with a desperate elbow to the temple that staggered him sideways.

Ray Jr’s vision blurred behind the mask. He stumbled into the ropes, catching himself before he went over the top, and turned just in time to see Nakamuro charging in.

He threw himself sideways at the last second. Nakamuro’s shoulder crashed into empty rope where Ray Jr’s ribs had been a heartbeat earlier, his own momentum sending him crashing through the middle rope and tumbling out to the floor below.

The crowd erupted.

[Braxton: Nakamuro went out hard. He’s down on the outside.]

Ray Jr didn’t follow immediately. He leaned against the far ropes, dragging air into his lungs, his ribs screaming with every breath. He looked down at Nakamuro sprawled on the padded floor, one arm draped weakly over the barricade.

The referee began his outside count.

"One! Two! Three!"

Ray Jr pushed off the ropes and hit the far side, building whatever speed his battered legs had left, and dove through the middle rope with a suicide dive that caught Nakamuro square in the chest just as he was pushing himself up.

Both men crashed into the barricade in a tangle of limbs, the front row scattering back from the impact.

[Tanaka: Suicide dive! He’s got nothing left and he’s still finding ways to fly!]

The referee’s count reset, both men now needing to beat the ten instead of just one.

The referees new count was at "Four! Five!"

Ray Jr dragged himself up first, hauling Nakamuro along with him by the strap of his trousers. He rolled the bigger man under the bottom rope, then slid in himself just as the count reached eight, buying precious seconds before it could reach ten.

Nakamuro lay motionless near the center of the ring, blood still trickling from the cut above his eye, mixing with the sweat pooling beneath his cheek.

Ray Jr climbed to his feet slowly, one hand pressed against his ribs, the other braced against the ropes. He looked down at his opponent, both men running on nothing but adrenaline and stubbornness at this point.

[Braxton: What does he have left in the tank? Because Nakamuro isn’t moving! If Ray Jr can find something, surely the match is his.]

Ray Jr backed himself into the far corner, his boots dragging slightly against the canvas with every step. He fixed his gaze on the back of Nakamuro’s exposed neck, the same spot he’d found a million times before.

He took a slow breath, filling lungs that felt like they were on fire.

Nakamuro twitched, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, his neck laid bare and vulnerable in the center of the ring.

Ray Jr exploded off the corner.

He crossed the distance in three long strides, his body angling sideways at the last possible instant, pressing his right arm tight against his chest to expose the hard bone of his elbow.

[Tanaka: Here it comes!]

[Braxton: RAY GUN!]

The impact cracked through the arena, Ray Jr’s elbow catching Nakamuro flush at the base of the skull, exactly where the spine met the head. Nakamuro’s body went rigid before collapsing forward, completely limp, his face pressed flat against the canvas.

The Grand Auditorium came apart at the seams, thousands of voices rising into a single deafening wave that shook through everywhere.

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