Alicia Wells vs. Valley Doll - Kicking It

Because the unique way it was executed, Valley couldn’t see her attack hit, but she could sure enough hear it. Judging from the way the crowd hissed, they could hear it, too. All the way back to the cheap seats.

It was the nasty, sharp, unmistakeable and familiar sound of a boot hitting someone with execessive force, and it was likely the first of many times they’d experience it. In fact, the next opportunity might be coming up quite soon.

Valley hit the floor on her back and rolled forward, popped back to her feet in a one, fluid motion, and dashed off towards the ropes. It was only when she turned around to hit them with her back that she saw the fruits of her labor: Alicia was looking loopy, steadily rising to her feet. Recovering faster than most wrestlers would’ve, but maybe not fast enough.

Seizing the moment, Valley ran back towards and did a short hop, getting just high enough to plant her foot on Alicia’s shoulder for the briefest moment. From there, it was just a simple matter of swinging her other leg around in a quick roundhouse kick, once again targeting the younger wrestler’s head with the step-up enzuigiri.

This was starting to disturbingly familiar every time Alicia ended up in the ring with Valley. She’d got a kick in, tried to exploit her advantage and the blonde had pulled out some move she’d never even heard of before to gain the upper hand.

And in this case, Alicia’s eyes blinked back to focus just in time to see the blonde coming at her full speed ahead. Not good, an opinion that was only reinforced when Valley used her shoulder as a step up – a move that signified absolutely nothing good.

With a second to spare, the redhead managed to get her arms in between her skull and Valley’s foot, meaning she took the worst of the kick on the improvised block. But the momentum behind the blow was still enough to send her sprawling back to the mat, flat on her face this time before she managed to roll onto her side. Her hand was still cradling her head, her body slightly curled as her legs twitched. Even if Valley hadn’t landed that one square on, the blonde was still too good a kicker for Alicia to be moving anywhere fast. At least, not until her head stopped feeling like she’d been inside Big Ben when it struck the hour.

That said, while she was definitely down, she was equally definitely not out yet.

Alicia blocked it?

Alicia blocked it.

Valley managed to mask her surprise as she spun around and landed on her knees, but inside she was a bit stunned. The step-up enzuigiri was a fast move, and Alicia definitely hadn’t seen it before she got into wrestling. That she was able to prepare for it on such short notice showed some seriously good reflexes. It was another sign that she was dealing with a potentially dangerous opponent. One who could, if she didn’t watch it, knock her flat and keep her there.

With that in mind, Valley decided she needed to make a little more headway on declawing her foe. She stood back as Alicia rolled over to her side, reached down, and grabbed her by the ankle, lifting her mighty leg up. Still holding on, Valley moved to Alicia’s side and threw a couple of low shin kicks from there, targeting the same thigh she’d hit a few second ago.

Alicia – who would have been pleased as punch at catching Valley on the hop – was in no fit state to appreciate that surprise even if she’d seen it. Blocked or not, the two kicks following in quick succession had left her stunned, in need of a moment or several to gather her wits again.

Certainly, a veteran like Valley could be counted on not to give her that time and the blonde didn’t disappoint. The first thing she knew was when she felt her opponent’s hands wrap around her ankle, yanking her limb upwards. Still dazed from the enzuigiri to the skull, the redhead didn’t resist until the first sharp kick snapped home, striking the vulnerable muscles at the back of the thigh.

It was rapidly followed by a second, the piercing pain that radiated out from Valley’s repeated blows doing wonders for getting Alicia’s head back in the game. She couldn’t let the blonde keep that up for long or she’d be limping for the rest of this match.

Gritting her teeth, the kickboxer waited until just after the latest kick struck home before she acted. Hoping that Valley would be at her most off balance, she threw herself into a hard roll away from the blonde, expecting to either yank her leg free or – ideally – yank Valley off her feet and send her for a tumble.

Valley would’ve been satisfied with only getting one kick in, but the second one was a pleasant bonus. The match was still in its infancy, but so far things had gone pretty well in her favor - she had a clear strategy, a dedicated target to work on, a superior position to get it done with it. Feeling more and more sure of herself, she pulled Alicia’s ankle under her shoulder and got ready to turn things up a bit.

The move she was going for would never get off the ground, though, as Alicia rejoined the land of the living. The sudden jolt and roll was an unwelcome surprise, and the tight hold she had at the moment meant only one thing: she was going along for the ride.

Valley Doll was flung forward and went rolling across the mat. She’d managed to turn the momentum into a somersault so she wouldn’t come down on her head, but the main problem was that she didn’t have too much ring to work with - they were near the corner, after all.

She wound up hitting the turnbuckle halfway through the roll, coming down on her shoulders in an awkward position. Didn’t hurt all that much, but it did take her a few irritating seconds to work her way around with the ropes and get back to her feet, standing up with her back against the pads.

It looked like she’d managed that just in time. Alicia didn’t know what sort of move Valley’d had in mind when she shifted her grip but she could think of at least a few submissions from her MMA training that could be done from there and she wanted no part of any of them. The change had left the blonde thoroughly open to what she’d tried though, meaning the redhead had been able to shift her weight exactly as planned and Valley had gone flying.

As soon as the grip around her leg vanished, Alicia wasted no time in pushing herself back to her feet, hissing through gritted teeth as the abused hamstring objected. But she couldn’t stay down, she needed to get back on her feet and she’d soldiered through worse than that before. Luckily, Valley hadn’t had a chance to throw any more of those, but the muscle was already stiffening. She’d have to be careful of that leg for a bit. If she got the chance, she was going to need it.

The first step she took was definitely limping but the second was stronger and the third more assured still. All of them carried her towards Valley, who was struggling to her own feet, at increasing speed. She wouldn’t get there before the blonde got there but, hopefully, she'd get there before her opponent got her wits fully about her. Stopping inside her own reach but outside of Valley’s, thoroughly wary of any signs she was about to receive another double boot to the face, the kickboxer lined her target up and unloaded a side kick directly at the blonde’s jaw.

Payback time.

Valley knew Alicia would be coming her way as she stood back up, but somehow, she didn’t expect to see her so soon. Targeting the leg seemed to slow her down, but not quite enough. Not yet. Still much work to be done.

That being said, working Alicia’s leg would only be a viable strategy if she survived long enough to exploit it. That was by no means a guarantee, as the high-calibre shotgun blast of a kick to her face proved.

Valley instinctively brought up her hand to block the kick, but she almost didn’t need to bother. Alicia’s kick annihilated her guard and came through with ease, cracking her hard against the jaw and giving Valley a bitter taste of her own medicine.

”God…” She sputtered and stumbled out of the corner, making a short retreat. If not for her hold on the ropes, she very well might’ve fallen to her knees.

After being on the receiving end for the bulk of the short match so far, it was definitely preferable as far as Alicia was concerned to be returning the favour. Shooting that kick right into Valley’s jaw was a good start but she knew she’d need to keep piling on the pressure and the damage if she wanted to keep in the driver’s seat here. She didn’t really have a game plan beyond trying to keep the blonde on the ground and on the receiving end.

Speaking of which, that actually sounded like a great idea. If she could get Valley off her feet, then her high-flying and speedy tricks wouldn’t come into play so much. And, while Valley undoubtedly had the better of her in wrestling experience, Alicia was more than happy to match her MMA ground game against that any day. Her scissors might be her best move, but they weren’t the only submission trick in her bag either – just her favourite. She also probably wasn’t going to get a better chance than this for a while, given how Valley’d looked after that kick.

Hoping to catch the blonde before she got too far, Alicia shot forward as fast as she dared, looking to grab one of Valley’s legs and use her own mass and momentum to drop the smaller wrestler to the floor. It’d be a crude single leg takedown but as long as it worked – it wasn’t like they were being scored on style here.

If it worked, the redhead intended to go for a kneebar, meaning she’d want to keep a hold of Valley’s leg.

Valley had always wondered what it would be like to take herself on in a match. There were wrestlers with a similar style to her own - Julia Rogers, Gemma Faraday, to name a couple of the more promising ones - but none of them seemed to rely as much on kicks as she did, so the comparison was never complete.

Well, now she had some inkling, and she could confidently say: it was painful. And when Alicia came in quick and snagged her leg, she knew it would only become moreso from there.

She tried to fight the takedown, but with Alicia's weight advantage, the initiative on her side, and being as stunned as she was, that simply was not happening. Down she went, with Alicia following right after her. And she wasn’t coming down with nothing, either.

Valley rarely screamed in the ring, but when Alicia locked in the kneebar, she let out a high-pitched shriek. She’d been in the move before, but it had been a while. She’d forgotten how excruciatingly painful it could, how it felt like her bones were coming apart at the seams. Now that Alicia had her locked in a tight one, she was quickly remembering.

There was a saving grace, though. Valley had been close to the ropes when she was recovering, and they were still fairly near now. She stretched out and reached for the ropes with wiggling fingers, not wanting to spend a single millisecond in the hold that she didn’t have to.

Her takedown had been as simple and crude as Alicia had expected, but it’d still worked. She’d got Valley down on the mat and she’d kept hold of her leg. With that, the second the two of them had hit the floor, Alicia had spun around Valley’s leg, scissoring the blonde’s thigh with her own legs and wrapping her arms firmly around the lower part of the limb to secure it. Then she’d arched her hips and pulled back on the ankle, putting ghastly strain on the knee joint as it tried to bend in a way nature most definitely hadn’t intended.

Kneebars were another of her favourite moves, though not one she’d used in her few matches or sparring sessions since joining Friction, so she’d got a good idea of how to get the best out of it. Judging by the cry of agony that she got with the first wrenching pressure she’d put into the hold, she’d not lost the knack either. It was a nasty move to be on the receiving end of, but – despite still liking the blonde – Alicia applied it mercilessly. She too knew they were pretty close to the ropes and was pretty sure that Valley wasn’t going to tap when she could get a rope break. Given the way they were positioned, both parallel to the ropes, it wouldn’t be easy for her to pull Valley back to centre ring either.

Which, in a weird way, was good. She didn’t want the match ending yet.

So her plan was to get as much wrung out of her opponent as she could before the inevitable happened. Keeping an eye on the fingers stretching out, Alicia leant back and worked the hold as hard as she could until the first brushed the bottom strand. As soon as it did, not even waiting for the demand from the ref, the big redhead broke the hold and scooted back to rise to her feet.

That ought to keep the acrobatics to a minimum for a bit.