Imai Cosmo vs Laila Nazari

Laila was breathing hard as she managed to get a shoulder up. Her vision was still swirling a little from that headbutt, and that stranglehold from earlier still left her feeling pretty weak. All the same, she still managed to roll over onto her front, managing to get her knees under her. In front of her, Imai was sitting up and staring his respect for her with that usual, insufferable smile of his. She merely glared up at him in return. Idiot, running your mouth and giving me time to recover...

Then, however, Laila's hair was grabbed, as she was suddenly hauled up into a sitting position. The next thing she knew, one of her arms was suddenly trapped under Imai's armpit, while his free arm snaked around her neck, his biceps digging into her throat as he reapplied his sleeper. Her immediate reaction at first was to bring her free arm up to pry at his arm-- but the experience part of her thought better of it. Rasping for breath through clenched teeth, she instead brought her arm down to her side, just as Imai's legs tried to snap around her waist. The action saved her, as her intervening arm prevented Imai's legs from locking together fully in what would have been a match-ending scissor.

She wasn't out of trouble yet, though: Imai had the sleeper locked in firm, and she couldn't breathe. Grey spots were beginning to form across her vision. Willing her sluggish body to move, Laila tried to bring her legs up around one of Imai's that hadn't closed fully around her in a body scissor, trying to keep it in place; if she managed that, then she would try to pull her arm free from against Imai's other leg and start to ram it back, again and again, elbowing Imai in the ribs until he hopefully let go of her.

She was racing against time as her body started to slowly fail, growing weaker and weaker, and she knew that she had to break free or it was lights out...

Imai grinned wildly as he managed to at least get the sleeper hold applied once more on Laila. Even if he wasn't able to fully apply the bodyscissors thanks to the Egyptian woman managing to get her free arm down to keep his legs from fully locking in he knew that as they were both running on empty even the sleeper by itself shouldn't take too long to knock her out. Still she was proving to be a fighter right to the end as he could feel her moving her own toned legs to try and snake around one of his own. He had the instinctual urge to pull the leg back but at the same time he didn't want to risk losing the stability he currently had with the hold so he let her legs wrap around his without much struggle.

As she pulled her trapped arm free from under his other leg he winced as he felt elbows once more hit against his ribs. This time however Imai grit his teeth and worked to try and fight through the pain by wrenching on the sleeper as hard as he could. This was a war of attrition at its finest, he just needed to ignore the pain as long as he could, even with each blow to his sides he kept up the sleeper hold. "Not... this time... This time... you're going down...!" He managed to get out between each blow she dealt him, hoping that she'd run out of steam before he'd actually have to loosen up his hold. As this struggle raged on the crowd continued to cheer, a sharp division between those cheering for Imai to end the match and those cheering Laila on to not give up and free herself from the hold. It was clear that both were going to be given a lot of respect by the audience no matter how the end came.

Laila's elbow smacked once, twice, three times against Imai's ribs, each blow eliciting a grunt from her male opponent as she drove her elbow agaisnt him again and again. Even with Imai's arms now coiled around her throat, and even with her breathing cut off, she was still able to muster the strength and power needed to jacknife her arm back hard against her opponent. Each blow caused Imai to grunt and groan with pain, and she knew she was hurting him badly.

But, damn him, he would not let go.

Both wrestlers' bodies were drenched in sweat now as the lay entangled with each other on the mat, Laila's legs interlocked with Imai's even as one of her muscular arms pawed uselessly against Imai's, her free arm striking back again and again. Slowly but surely, though, he movements began to fade. Her visible efforts to breathe slackened, though her expression became unreadable as her damp hair flicked over her eyes.

Her vision was going dark, and her limbs felt like they were made of lead. She wanted to fight on, to thrash her way free, to tear Imai to pieces...but by this point a horrible, numb weakness was coming over her body With a terrible finality, her body went still, her sweat-streaked form still propped up against Imai's.

The referee was quickly rushing over, and raised one of Laila's arms and released it. The arm fell uselessly to the mat. The referee raised it a second time. For a second time, it fell to the mat. The ref raised it for a third time: with a horrible finality, Laila's arm fell lifelessly to the mat.

Immediately, the referee told Imai to release Laila. The bell rang, and the crowd erupted into cheers: after a long, arduous, tooth-and-nail battle, Imai Cosmo had finally emerged the winner in his AFW debut!

Imai kept the hold up through the pain, he knew he just had to hold on a bit more, especially as he could feel her struggles weaken until she no longer had the strength to even lift her arm for another elbow to his ribs. Soon enough her struggles ended entirely and he watched as she fell completely limp and he watched the ref intently as they went to do the check to see if she truly was knocked out.

The first time the ref lifted Laila's arm Imai watched it drop limply back to the mat. One. The second time the arm was lifted and once more fell to the mat with a dull thud. Two. One last time he watched the arm be lifted and once more it fell with a finality for the end of the match. Three.

As soon as the ref told him to Imai immediately broke the hold, moving back while letting Laila lay back on the mat, both their bodies covered in sweat and likely bruises but Imai felt good, especially as the crowd cheered and the bell rung. Rising to his feet he pumped a fist to the cheering audience, grinning even as his other hand went to where Laila's elbow had struck his side. He took the time to catch his breath and soak in the feeling of his first win, in his debut in AFW no less. As he did his eyes turned back to Laila as she was left on the mat, hair damp, toned limbs in different positions, and the rise and fall of her chest and stomach. Even defeated she looked amazing though he shook that thought out of his head.

He wanted to stay and check on his opponent once she could be roused from her forced slumber but he had a feeling she might not happy to see the face of the man who knocked her out immediately after waking up. Thus he would move and roll under the bottom ropes to outside the ring, once more raising his fist to the cheering audience with a grin on his face as he looked to the ring and his opponent. 'I just hope you'll let me thank you for an amazing first match here once you get to the back, Laila-san.' He thought to himself before turning to go up the ramp and head backstage to rest. If this was the kind of match he could look forward to in the future then AFW was going to be a fun place indeed!