Bryan Daniels vs. Makoto Takeda - Hard Restart

Mako barely, just barely managed to dodge Bryan’s elbow drop, avoiding the blow with less than a foot to spare. It probably wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world if it did hit, really. Bryan was big, bigger than her, but just about everyone was, really. He didn’t have the weight to turn something like an elbow drop into a fatal move, but it was still way more than Mako wanted to absorb from this guy.

She saw the chance. She took the chance.

But now she had to do something with it, right? She had Bryan hurt, and even though she was hurting plenty, too - god, that Samoan Drop had sucked hard - she was in good enough shape to do stuff. Stuff that didn’t involve much standing.

As Bryan crawled away and started to raise up, Mako maneuvered around him, trying to approach his back. When she was close enough, when he got up to his knees, that was when Mako struck, reaching out from behind and trying to wrap her short arms around his neck with a sleeperhold. Simple, but effective, the sort of move that didn’t need much strength in order to make someone take a long nap.

Aside from his manly pride, not much else stung more than his elbow after whiffing Mako completely and elbow dropping the wide open canvas. His blatant showboating right in the middle of a match had gotten him into trouble before, but like the showman he was, he just couldn't resist playing to the crowd when he felt he had earned it. Namely from being in command of the match up until now and supposedly inflicting enough damage on Mako to have her be perfectly still for an extra second or two.

Instead all he had to show for his troubles was a sore elbow and a wounded ego. Both of which he was still nursing as he rose back to his knees only to be pounced on from behind by the scrappy biker gang leader.

"Hggh...mmfh..." Bryan chortled a few pained gasps once he felt the constriction on his windpipe, scrunching his face while taking labored breaths. He would raise one of his arms skyward to make sure the ref wasn't even thinking about ringing the bell anytime soon. His free arm would latch onto the petite bicep bearing down his neck and tug away on it to hopefully alleviate some of the strain on his tensed neck muscles until he could think of a way out of this...

People had called Mako a pitbull before, probably meaning it like an insult. She never took it that harshly, though. Pitbull’s were badass dogged. They could fuck you, and once they sank their teeth, they were a bitch to get off.

Fit her perfectly, as Bryan was now learning that the hard way. She locked in the sleeper, sinking her teeth in deep, and then the squeezing began, pumping away hard on his neck with the tight hold.

To his credit, Bryan was fighting hard pulling on her arm and reducing a good deal of the stress. But that just made Mako even more determined to hold it. “Feeling a little tired, bitch?” She spoke in her best evil schoolgirl voice, drilling it right into his ear. ”Go the fuck to sleep, come on. If you get up, I’m just gonna keep knocking the shit out of you all over this ring. Might as well take a nap, right?”

Sound logic, in her mind.

"...*pant*...*pant*..." Bryan didn't offer much Mako in the way of a rebuttal aside from some exhaustive panting, the biker gang leader whispering not-so-sweet nothings directly into his ear in a tone that could have been considered quite seductive...if not for the actual words being said to him.

Bryan scrunched his face from the renewed tightening of the sleeperhold by the rapacious spider monkey clinging to his neck, seconds passing by while he briefly wobbled on the one knee he had gotten under him. Eventually Mako's suggestion was becoming more and more of a likely scenario...until a steady stream of claps started echoing sounding off nearby...originating from his ardent fangirls and gaining traction until even Bryan could vaguely make it out.

Feeding off the swelling momentum urging him onward, Bryan eventually summoned enough willpower to steadily shuffle back to his feet with Mako still riding piggyback. He nearly buckled from the added weight of the petite brawler, but if he remembered where he was in the ring, there should be a turnbuckle a few feet behind him. He hoped his memory would serve him right, cause Bryan would attempt to backpedal backward and slam Mako against it in the hopes of that slam being enough to pry her off of him.

”-will you go the fuck to sleep already?” Mako hissed, still clamping down on Bryan’s neck like an overenthusiastic limpet. Honestly, she was kind of impressed by the guy’s stamina. She'd pegged him as being a prissy wimp, a model with all substance and little style. While Makoto wasn't about to retract all of that, she was willing to admit he was damn tougher than she'd originally sussed.

It was kind of funny, to see him struggle like this. It was even funnier when she heard the way the audience was reacting.

”Oh!” She had a hard chuckle and looked from side to side, making sure her fellow Japanese could all see the smile on her face. ”Like that’s really going to help this fucker-”

She was about to make her opinion known, when the joke suddenly became much, much less funny. Bryan was rising, slowly but surely, and he was lifting her along with him.

”Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me with this bullshit!” She gave him another few good wrenches, trying to hammer him down, wear him out, drain the energy, knock him out before he had the chance to do anything serious.

It didn’t work.

She hit the turnbuckle hard and would’ve fallen flat to her butt if her arms hadn’t draped over the ropes. As it was, Mako was barely managing to stand up at the moment, wobbling on her feet and shaking her head, trying to get some clarity back in her skull.

If Bryan could physically do it at the moment, he might be so inclined as to pat himself on the back a few times. His wrestling coaches told him to never panic when placed in a sleeperhold, and so far he had been adhering to that helpful tidbit of knowledge fairly well. Still, he'd be damned if his vision wasn't getting a little hazy already…especially once Mako started to put some extra torqueing pressure on the sleeperhold once he was managing to work his way back to his unsteady legs.

Thankfully, Bryan's vague recollection of where he was in the ring led to him slamming the ornery gang leader against the corner turnbuckle. The model athlete stumbled forward once he'd literally gotten the monkey off his back, choking out some sputtered coughs with one hand rubbing the sore spot on his neck where Mako's bicep used to be.

He offered his jubilant fangirls a meek thumbs up as thanks for helping to will himself out of that hold. Never underestimate the power of positivity and frenzied fangirls, he always said...

After finally normalizing his breathing pattern, Bryan would turn in place and see Mako propped up against the corner, apparently just as winded as he was. Bryan knew he didn't have time to think, just act. Charging right back at Mako as fast as he could manage, Bryan would leap up and attempt a flying body splash. Hopefully flattening her between a rock and a hard place...namely the corner buckle, and his chiseled abs.

Hurt.

Pissed.

Barely able to stand.

This was not the position that Mako wanted to find herself in. Never. Ever. Especially when she was up against a weed like this. Bryan Daniels. Bryan Fucking Daniels. The guy packed a surprisingly good punch, was a lot tougher than she’d first imagined, could give as good as he got, but it didn’t matter. No way was she losing to a gaijin like this.

It was that hardened, resolved thought that made her start to stand up straight again, looking to get out of the corner. She might’ve made it, too, if she didn’t suddenly find Bryan’s supermodel body way, way damn closer than she wanted it.

She was slammed, full force, against the turnbuckle, with enough power to make the ring shake. With a soundless scream, she fell to the floor, first to her knees, then to her chest…

...and she started rising up again a moment later.

It was slow, it was sloppy, but Mako was getting up. She growled as she rose, a hoarse, harsh sound that matched her murderous glare perfectly. ”I...am going...to kick your ass.” She spoke through her clenched teeth, looking straight into Bryan’s eyes.

Taking to the air was always a 50/50 chance of it blowing up in your face. But unlike his earlier botched elbow drop, Bryan was rewarded for his compulsiveness by fiercely body checking Mako against the turnbuckle. He took a few steps back to allow Mako some space...which she used to fall flat on her face to the scattered applause of the crowd.

Bryan stepped back and wiped some sweat from his forehead while allowing her to collect herself. Something he knew she wouldn't do if roles were reversed...but no one said being chivalrous was easy...or wouldn't end up hurting him later on.

Bryan replied with a beleaguered sigh after seeing Mako start to shuffle upwards with that venomous glare and retort. He allowed her some space, but just enough for her to get back on her knees before bending down to clench his muscled arms around her waist and her left arm. Applying a firm bearhug before hoisting her back to her feet and then some, their height difference allowing for some inches between her boots and he canvas.

"Guess you didn't expect to be slammed around by some ruggedly handsome gaijin male model, huh? Well, ya may not wanna hear this either...but we're actually putting on a damn decent match. Which you might just appreciate, if you cut back on all that hate you're spewing my way." Bryan uttered right into Mako's ear with a few strained groans before taking a few steps to the middle of the ring. The "gaijin" flexing his arms and adding some torque to the bearhug that had his sculpted torso bearing down on her in the sweaty, painful, and steadily heated embrace.

Mako wasn’t exactly sure what sort of wrestler Bryan was - he kind of seemed to be all over the place. He had the strength to lift her up, but then, so did most of the roster. That wasn’t impressive by itself.

But when his arms came around her back and pulled him in close, she could feel the power in his arms. The rippling muscle, crushing him against his hardened chest, their glistening body’s sliding over each other, the way he whispered in her ear…

...goddamn, it had been too long since she’d had a good fuck. She’d have to fix that. Later.

For now, her main concern was not getting sliced in half, a notion that was getting harder and harder to maintain the longer this hold went on. She did know a way out of this, she was fairly sure, but it was violent and would hurt him just as much as it hurt her, if not more so.

So, of course, she did it with gusto.

Using her one free hand, she reached around Bryan’s head and grabbed his hair, getting a tight grip to pull his head back. Once she’d moved it far enough away, she pulled it in fast while she jerked forward, slamming their skulls together at full force.

And she’d keep doing it. Again and again. Until he either let go, stopped her, or one of them got knocked out.

While Bryan was by no stretch of the imagination a roided out muscle head like Killer King or anything like that, he luckily didn't need to be nowhere near that jacked to hoist Mako up and clamp down on her in the intensified bear hug. There were tons of other ways he could have continued putting the pressure back on Mako, but considering she had just been pancaked against the turnbuckle twice in a row, she must have been feeling winded by now. And if getting a slight blush from feeling her breath trickle against his neck was the price of squeezing the fight out of her and winning, he could live with a few minutes of awkwardly hugging it out with the scrappy brawler.

In the middle of it all, Bryan wondered if any of what he said got through to her. He figured not, considering how hard-headed she was. Unfortunately, that was something he would learn first hand once Mako clenched onto a tuft of his hair and started banging their heads together...repeatedly.

"Nnngh...hugh..." Bryan scrunched his face with every meeting of the minds Mako put her through, sweat droplets flying from his head as he endured the head-banging treatment for as long as he could. Eventually Bryan had a hard enough time thinking straight let alone maintaining his grip on Mako, so down she would go and away Bryan would stumble while holding onto his forehead and leaning his back against the ropes.

"Sheezus...ngh...You...fucking suck, you know that?" Bryan mumbled out in between rubbing his forehead, attempting to straighten his blurry vision with repeated and exaggerated blinking.