The Second Match

THE SECOND MATCH Notebook. Private. Sunday morning. Gym is empty. I am writing this in the locker room before the warm-up. The coach is in the office. I have an hour. ———————————————— I have read Mr. Braddock's piece. I will explain the name I am using and then I will move on. The man competes under the name Static. The man signed the document he posted to the federation's site with the initials "C. B." — his legal initials, Clay Braddock. The signature convention is his. I am respecting it. He may refer to me by the ring name when I have earned the equivalent. We are not at that stage of the relationship. He has not earned it yet, and neither have I. I have read the piece three times. Once in the gym parking lot, on my phone, the night the announcement was made. Once on the plane back to the hotel that night. Once this morning at this desk, slowly, with a pen, marking the lines I wanted to write back to. I am going to address them in the order they appeared. ———————————————— ONE. The first paragraph that concerned me used the word "kid." Mr. Braddock used the word three times in the section he wrote about me. He used it once as descriptor — accurate. He used it twice as analytical — incorrect. I am twenty-four years old. He is thirty-eight, I believe, though I have not confirmed the year. He is older than I am by a meaningful margin. The descriptor "kid" is the kind of word an older fighter uses for a younger fighter and I am not going to take offense at it because the offense would itself be the kind of thing a kid would do. But the descriptor is descriptive. It is not analytical. Being the kid does not tell you what the kid can do. Being the kid does not tell you what the kid has studied. Being the kid does not tell you whether the kid is going to hand Mr. Braddock a result he was not expecting. The descriptor and the result are different categories of information. He is permitted to use the descriptor. He is not entitled to draw a conclusion from it. The descriptor and the result are different categories of information. I am going to repeat the sentence because the locker room reads what I write and the locker room is the room I am preparing this thinking for. The descriptor and the result are different categories of information. ———————————————— TWO. The line in his piece I most appreciated was the line about innocence. He wrote: "The kid is not innocent. Innocent is a word with a meaning." I want him to know that I read this line and I agreed with it. I have never characterised myself as innocent. I have characterised myself as prepared. The two things are different. The federation has been characterising me as arrogant for not pretending to be the first of those things, and the audience has been booing me for not pretending to be the first of those things, and Mr. Braddock is the first opponent on the federation's record who has named the distinction publicly. I appreciate it. The work is the work. Innocence is not the work. He is correct. This is the only line in his piece that I will not be writing back against. I am writing in support of it. He read me accurately. The reading is, on the record, in writing, mutually agreed. ———————————————— THREE. The hardest paragraph to read was the one about what he intends not to do. He wrote that he does not want to hurt me in a way I carry forward. He wrote that this was not because I am twenty-four. He wrote that this was because of work he has already done that he does not write about and that produced the rules he committed to. I read this paragraph four times. I want to put down, on the record, that I read it two ways at once. Both readings are accurate. Both readings are sitting in my head this morning. Neither reading is going to change what I do on Saturday. The first reading is professional courtesy from a man who has carried-forward damage of his own. Mr. Braddock has, on the record, refused to write about the specific incident his rules came from. He is the only veteran in this federation who has produced a publicly visible code limited specifically by something he himself did. That is not condescension. That is a man who has paid for his ethics and who, having paid, is committing not to charge that price to me. The second reading is condescension dressed as care. The line "this is because of work I have already done that I do not write about" is a sentence that asks me to take seriously the unstated history of an older fighter. I am not in a position to refuse that. The unspoken weight of the unwritten thing is the weight he is asking me to accept on his terms. I am twenty-four. I am being asked to accept the gravity of his experience without the specifics. The asking is itself the condescension. He may not have meant it as condescension. But the structure of it is. Both readings are correct. They are not in conflict. The professional courtesy is real and the condescension is real. I am going to respond to both readings the same way. I am not going to fight Saturday as a man being protected. I am not going to fight Saturday as a man being condescended to. I am going to fight Saturday as the version of myself the commitment was made for — the one Mr. Braddock decided was worth not damaging. The commitment was made for the kid he watched on tape. I am going to be the kid he watched on tape. He gets the version of me his code was written to face. Everything else is not relevant to the work. If he ends the match, the match ends. I will not carry it forward. He has my word on that, in writing, in the same document he can read, in the same way he wrote his. If I end the match, the match ends. He will not carry it forward. He has my word on that also. The work is the work. The rules of the work, in this room, with this opponent, are the rules I have just written. ———————————————— FOUR. The structural matter. The room favours him. This is true. I have been studying it. The lower-two-thirds rule favours the man who controls position against the cage wall. The absence of rope breaks favours the man whose offense does not require ropes to recover from. The weapon-permissive format favours the man who has been bringing weapons into rooms for fifteen years. All of this is true. The federation has booked this match into the room that most favours my opponent and least favours me. I am going to write down what I intend to do about it. Not in detail — the detail is for the cage. But in framework, because writing the framework is how I confirm I understand it. The framework has three pieces. One. The cage wall is his home. I will not visit. I will fight at centre. Centre is the position I can leave from in any direction. The cage wall is the position I can leave from in two. Two. The high-altitude exchanges have to land. There is no version of this match where I produce three near-falls from the top of the cage wall and lose to a finish on the canvas. If I am going to the top, I am going to the top to finish. The Shooting Star Press has been my finisher since before this federation existed. It is going to be my finisher in this federation also. Three. The code costs him. He has publicly committed not to weaponise the face. He has publicly committed not to weaponise the throat. He has publicly committed not to attack post-bell past a reasonable count. He has publicly committed not to harm innocents — and the innocent in this cage is me, by the rules of his framework, even if I am not innocent by the rules of mine. The constraints are real. The constraints are usable. I am not going to enumerate which constraints I intend to use against him in writing, because the locker room reads what I write and so does he. The constraints are usable. He knows they are. He committed to them anyway. That is also worth respecting. ———————————————— CLOSING NOTE. This is the second match. For Mr. Braddock the second match is the one after Rancid. For me the second match is the one after Dorian — the one Dorian set in motion at BCD 1 and that the federation has spent six weeks helping me set right. The contender slot is the gate. I will get through the gate. The kid has already been in the room. The kid has been studying it. — N. D.