Laila Nazari vs. Sara Conner - Collision Course

Sara was already starting to sense a theme with this woman - it was going to be difficult, nearly impossible, to deliver big damage to her and not take some of her own in the process. Laila wasn’t as fast as her, but she wasn’t slow, either, and the advantage that Sara enjoyed in that department would only get her so far. She’d have to change a few things up.

That was the thought process when she tried to slam Laila like this. To her credit, it worked. For the most part.

She drove her foe back, hard, into the post, and it was enough to make her release her grip and give Sara her freedom. Staggering back, she wanted to take a moment to recoup, sucking some big breaths, but she knew that wasn’t a luxury she had - Laila was in a corner, and she was stunned. This opportunity would not come her way again for a while, if it ever did.

Sara threw herself forward and unloaded with a barrage of blows, throwing out a couple of quick lefts and rights towards her opponent’s face, following up with an uppercut to her breadbasket, then coming back up again with a wild right hook. It was berserker’s barrage, a bevy of blasts intended to make the  most of her superior but temporary position.

The two of them were fairly close to one another now, the Egyptian pressed against the corner while the American pressed in on her. An unenviable position, to be sure, especially against someone with a reputation as grisly as Sara's. Laila kept her cool, but it was plain to see that her match was not off to a good start so far, especially now that she was gasping in lungfuls of air.

And then the punches came. Sara wasn't stupid, and quickly took advantage of her position by attacking, and attacking, and attacking again. She managed to block the first couple of blows aimed at her face-- the last thing she needed, after all, was to be badly dazed right now-- but the punch to her gut was one that she was too slow to counter. It drove the air further from her lungs, and forced her to double over, leaving her vulnerable to further blows to her shoulders and back. She gritted her teeth further, and managed to bring her arms up to block some of the further blows, but that blow to her gut was already slowing her down a lot. Not good. Between her throbbing spine and her winded lungs, she was in an increasingly bad position.

The only thing Laila could do was try to strike back, especially since the other girl was going all out on offence. She suddenly surged forward-- taking a glancing hit from one of Sara's fists across the cheek in the process, in blow that stung and shook her head to the side slightly-- and tried to catch one of Sara's arms by the wrist. If she managed that, then she would follow up by trying to twist the two of them around, so that Sara was against the corner, before lowing her body and driving her shoulder into the other woman's breadbasket. If, that was, that little counter of hers worked.

Sara hissed when Laila managed to block her first few strikes to the face, giving her nothing but limbs to slam her fists again. Bad impact. Fizzled out. Dead on arrival. They might’ve been enough to rattle a weaker opponent, missed or not, but against someone like Laila? She might as well have missed entirely for all the good it would do her. She needed something real to sink her teeth into. Something that would leave bruises.

Like that. That would do.

The blow to her stomach struck gold and bent Laila over, and from there, the floodgates opened. Sara still wasn’t landing all of her hits, but she was having more success by the second, and it was only a matter of time before she got an opening big enough to slip in something heavy. An uppercut to the jaw, a knee to the face, a properly placed elbow - there were a lot of ways she could wrap this up in record time, and she wasn’t against any of them. It wouldn’t please the crowd, but she couldn’t have cared less on that front.

It seemed Laila had a few others thoughts on the matter, though, a fact that Sara discovered when her arm was seized out of the blue. She’d gotten too complacent, too used to the flow, and the grip on her wrist caught her by surprise. Before she could even muster a chance to respond, she was whipped around, up against the corner, and Laila’s shoulder was firmly embedded in her stomach. Gasping, Sara tried to bash Laila on the back, but she wasn’t in a position to get much force behind them.

Laila felt Sara double over, the other girl's chest pushing down softly against her upper back as she felt the solid muscle of the other woman's abdomen quiver against her shoulder. She was still breathing through clenched teeth after that punch to her gut: damn it, but this American packed quite a punch. Not surprising, she thought to herself, but that still meant that she had to fight smart against her and avoid letting her get too many hits in.

Grabbing the ropes, Laila backed away a little, before driving her shoulder into Sara's firm midsection yet again, wanting to drive the air from the blonde's lungs. Then, standing back up to her full height, Laila would grab one of Sara's arms, sparing half a second to look her gasping foe in the eye, and whip her across the ring. The moment Sara came bouncing back, Laila would leap forward, aiming to floor her foe with a hard clothesline!

God, Laila was strong. Sara knew that the moment she laid eyes on her, expected it, but there was no understanding this sort of power until you felt it up close. There was no give in this body, no relief from the muscles, just pure power driving into her midsection, nearly cutting her in half at the waist. It left her gasping, and worse, wide open to whatever would’ve come next.

It was by a small stroke of luck that Laila decided to not just pummel her into oblivion in that corner, clearly having loftier goals. Sara staggered forward as Laila pulled her out of the corner, then sent her off running, hurling her towards the nearest ropes.

It was all she could do to go along with the flow...at first. She spun around, bounced off the ropes, and started to come back, where she could see Laila’s arm racing towards her neck, threatening to knock her head clear off her shoulders.

Sara ducked down at the last moment, so close that her hairs brushed against Laila’s arm it sliced the air above her. Still moving, she turned around just enough to swing her leg out as she passed by, throwing a hard kick towards Laila’s knee, going right for the point of it to strike at the bone.

Laila was, at this point, satisfied that Sara had been soften up substantially in the corner. She saw the ref in the corner of her eye, watching her warily and about to give her a warning in case her bout of corner beating continued for too long...which suited Laila just fine. Pummeling Sara in the corner until she was nothing but a bloodied pulp of meat would be too easy. If she was going to destroy this other woman, she wanted to do it convincingly.

And so she whipped Sara across the ropes and came running at her, aiming to rock her world with a devastating clothesline...except Sara was not nearly as dazed as she had expected. Moving with a swiftness that seemed to defy gravity, Sara ducked the clothesline. A second later, hot, biting pain shot up Laila's knee as Sara's foot slammed into it, and the next thing Laila knew she was toppling onto her side, clutching her knee as she winced in pain and irritation...

There was really nothing quite like the sensation Sara experienced when she landed a solid strike like that one, hitting right on the bone. She could feel the tendons stretch, the bone giving way on impact, the muscles twisting in ways they weren’t meant to. She wasn’t a sadist, just inflicting pain didn’t give her pleasure, but there was no ignoring the satisfaction. Like a ball slipping through the hoop from the three-point line, or the crack of a baseball on a bat before it goes soaring for the homerun. But, most importantly, it was effective. Laila was staggered, and Sara had something she craved in this match for the first time: an opening.

The second Laila spun around to face her, Sara would already be in her space, reaching to snag her head and force it into a side headlock, pressing in hard with her forearm. With that locked in tight, she’d plant her feet and swing hard, trying to bring her opponent over her hip and drop her flat on her back, with her in control.

She’d seen how well Laila did on her feet. But how was her ground game? Time to see.

Despite herself, Laila quickly found herself rolling on her side, clutching at her knee. That last blow at struck hard to the bone, making it feel as though the joint had come close to dislocating. Her teeth clenched shut as she forced back a cry of pain, but she knew that decisive strike by Sara was going to impede her mobility, going forward. No doubt, this was Sara's plan, and damn it all, Laila had walked right into her little trap.

Even so, Laila still managed to get back to her feet, and still managed to turn to face the American, even though her knee was now throbbing dully from the effort. As soon as she spun to face Sara, however, her blonde opponent was already in her face...and then clamping an arm around that face, crushing her tightly against her side in a headlock. As Laila grabbed at Sara's arm, but by that point Sara was already in motion, flipping Laila expertly onto her back in an effective toss.

At that point, Laila now found herself on her back, pinned to the mat as Sara continued to crush at her in a headlock. Her teeth remained gritted from the pressure, and she tried to maneuver a hand up to push back on Sara's chin. This, of course, was just a distraction...as she would try to kick her legs back and snap them around Sara's head, hoping to pull her down to the mat with a scissor...

So far, Sara’s earlier estimation of this match was proving correct - her speed was going to be the deciding factor here. Laila wasn’t slow - to be honest, she was a good deal faster than many of her opponents back in MMA competition. But she wasn’t on the same gear, and in a match like this, where each strike could change the landscape in an instant, that was a crucial disadvantage.

It was that disadvantage which let Sara move in, snag the bigger woman, and bring her to the canvas in a single move, taking a solid position on top. Laila was strong, brutally strong, but that power wouldn’t mean too much in this position, and they both knew it. All she could do was fight hard, pushing at Sara’s face in a vain attempt to-

”No-”

Sara realized, too late, what Laila’s play was, as the iron pillars that she called legs rose up and wrapped around her head and yanked her back to the mat, immediately reversing their fates.

She knew she had about half a second before those legs powered down and she found herself in a rough situation. Throwing her legs back, Sara attempted to roll off her shoulder and plant her feet on the ground, forcing Laila to roll over to her chest with her. Once there, she pressed her palms to the mat and pushed up, attempting to slip her head free before the jaws clamped down.

Trapped under her armpit, Laila could only grimace as her face was ground against Sara's abs. She gained some much needed relief, however, as her legs snagged Sara's her, before her powerful limbs emphatically yanked the American off of her, pulling her back down to the mat. Taking a deep breath now that she was free to do so, Laila propped herself into a sitting position on her palms, ready to crush this American's head between her thighs.

Sara, however, reacted very quickly, rolling, and suddenly forcing Laila to roll as well. She grunted as she was forced to lie on her front, her chest flattened against the mat, before Sara's head managed to slip free from between her legs. Laila cursed, realizing that she was now in a vulnerable position, with her back exposed to her opponent. She tried to spin, hoping to roll up to her feet before Sara could capitalize on this reversal...