This was it, it was the day. I was nervous and frightened as I sat in my changing room and I could hear the crowd roaring, like someone was hammering nails in my heart. There was a boxing match between me and an experienced boxer and I was the underdog. The match was already declared one-sided by some spectators.

I was having flashbacks of all the training I had done and all my wounds were burning. I threw one last punch on my punching bag and took a deep breath. It was like breathing bricks. I walked out of the room and, as expected, I was “booed” by the spectators.

At that moment, my rage was caged. I stepped up on the ring, I was walking on spikes and I was peeling off all my scabs from the training, I was ready.

He entered with the crowd cheering his name, “Smith! Smith!”

My confidence dived down like a waterfall when I saw the man. He was clean-shaven, had short blonde hair and hooded eyes, with veins protruding from his arms.

There was no one yelling for me. The bell rang and I felt my arms heavy already. The next few moments made me realise that he was stronger than I thought, as he punched with all his fury and all I could do was block myself for the first three rounds. I was weak, sweaty and I wanted him to just land a punch on my chin and knock me out. He was unstoppable. I was bleeding from my mouth.

For a few minutes, I tried to play offensive when I realised that he was tired too, and was bending over and losing his stamina. Suddenly it felt as if magma started running in my veins and blood had dried up. I took the chance and started firing punches at him and, astonishingly, he was not even able to block it.

I kept hitting him with the body shots until I felt that my arm might burn into ashes with pain and agony as I had blocked all his punches with my arms. I heard the bell ring and when I was turning and walking away, he punched me, which was a foul. The crowd did not like it, but it was ignored by the referee.

The fifth round was about to begin and the coach held me by the arms and told me to hold on till the last round. He wiped off blood from my face and I got to my feet. It felt like he wiped off my suppressed fear.

My arms felt like dumbbells, too heavy to carry, but I was determined. My opponent didn’t expect me to withhold the ring for even a few seconds. He was so angry that his eyes seemed red and he looked like a raging bull. There were several memories flashing in my mind. I pushed all the strength I had up from my core to my fist and it took a second to throw a punch.

It was hard, it was hot, but he was down. A second later, I realised he was knocked out with his eyes rolled up. The crowd was on their feet yelling and I was on my knees. I realised haters are born to hate, what mattered was that I was victorious.

Published in Dawn, Young World, April 27th, 2019