Nicky Gunnery vs Suzy Quincy - Legacy Grudge Match

30 seconds was all it took for Nicky to identify the key difference between them that would net the brit the win: Suzy fought against her coach. They were not in synch, a sentiment she could all too easily identify with after going through several coaches that made her second-guess herself, that micro-managed her, that made her throw furtive glances the way Suzy was doing right in the middle of the fight. The dissonance between what her coach wanted her to do and what Suzy wanted to do was clear as day.

And Nicky was going to pluck her out of her coach's loving embrace.

Where Suzy sought to put the fear of god into Nicky, Nicky sought something much simpler: her swift and conclusive end. They closed with each other, eating up the distance, coming as close as they could without touching each other, raised gloves barely an inch apart. Suzy struck first, a flickering jab that dashed past her guard and caught her in the face, sending her back a step. The straight caught her right in the face too, and Nicky's head swiveled to the side... only to snap right back.

She was so focused on laying the beatdown to come that she barely cared for defense in the moment.

Her turn.

First came the flickering jabs, focused all on Suzy's guard, getting her to focus her defense up there. Then came the left uppercut into the belly and, when Suzy drew her attention down, she would quickly draw back, and send a vicious overhand swinging into her face.

Suzy never liked blocking, and not just because she wasn’t good at it. When she first started, rough and raw, her first instincts were to go in guns blazing and take her opponents down before they had the chance to strike back, swarm them with an aggressive infight. It just made sense - why draw them out? Take them down before they could take you down.

It had taken so long to suppress those instincts, and they were still there, bubbling under the surface. Some things, not even the best of coaches could make you unlearn. Some things were just ingrained.

When Suzy landed those punches, everything just felt...right. It was the most satisfying sensation, and it was addictive, she wanted more. She was already loading up for another punch, when her opponent showed a little more teeth than she was bargaining for.

Jabs. Flickers. Fast. Suzy’s guard wasn’t a good one, too tight on the face, and she wound up taking most of the impact through her gloves, a weak block. She peeled them off her face, only to wind up taking a heavy shot downstairs, one that had core shaking and made her fold up.

”Suzy!”

Carmen’s voice shot through her brain like a spike, and not a second too soon. She ducked and jerked to the side, letting the overhand whiff above her head. She could almost hear Carmen telling her to back off, make some distance, be safe...she ignored the voice and moved in, swung low, and came at Nicky’s midriff with two hooks, hammering them in sharp succession.

Nicky never liked blocking, and not because she wasn't good at it. Okay no, that was a lie. She wasn't great at it. Time spent on the backfoot meant time spent second-guessing, hesitation, and formulating plans that never quite worked out. Whatever defensive instincts she tried to learn had never quite panned out the way they should. She had to be moving forward. She had to be the one bringing the pain.

Where Suzy spent her time trying to suppress her natural inclinations, Nicky embraced them wholeheartedly. Maybe there was going to some match in the far-off future where Nicky's offense would prove futile, where her opponent was just so defensively evasive, so much of a technician that she just couldn't land a hit. She would tire herself out, get put down like a spent dog or get forced into a humiliatingly one-sided decision. That eventuality was always in the back of her mind.

But her short time with both sides of Suzy's style told her that technician was not in the ring today.

Her blow struck, Suzy visibly folded; she was hurting and Nicky went in for the kill. Unfortunately, Carmen's voice gave her the annoying jolt back to reality she needed to duck her aside and let what would have at least been a knockdown blow hit air. To Nicky's adredaline-fueled delight, Suzy made no distance. She came at her with twin blows that pounded harshly into Nicky's sides, jerking her. Nicky winced... and then moved forward to repay her with interest. She strode forward, weathering whatever blows Suzy intended to send her way, and tried to wrap Suzy in a half-clinch, securing their bodies close together. Her second arm made a show of trying to complete the clinch-

Only to shoot an uppercut point-blank into Suzy's chin once, twice. Their proximity making every blow on either side a near guaranteed hit.

Good, clean impact there, felt it right through the gloves, all the way to her bones. As irritating as it was to rely on Carmen’s heads up from ringside to get out of that little mess, Suzy couldn't complain about the results. Those hooks sunk in deep rattled Gunnery’s core, leaving her shook. That should make her back off for a little bit, give her some space, and-

Oh. Nope. She was going forward, anyway. Well, damn.

Suzy grunted, half in surprise and half in annoyance, as the two of them locked up in a tight clench. This wasn’t a good spot for either of them, but damn sure not for her. She needed some space, wanted to work the ring with her speed, and getting clinched up this early was a pain in the ass. She’d just have to push off, get back…

Wait. Why was this so easy?

The answer came quick enough, in the form of an uppercut crashing into Suzy’s chin. It send her head rocking back, jolted her neck, and she barely had time to register the first blow before the second hammered into the same spot. With her head spinning, she found herself on the backfoot once again, taking a step back, dazed.

This was where instinct and training came in. Though her brain was iffy on the next move, her body had its own ideas, and fell back on pure basics. She planted her feet and lashed out with the simplest combination - a left jab, followed by a right straight, aimed at Nicky’s face. Not much, just the barebones, but there was a reason that combo was such a staple.

A healthy dynamic between a coach and a fighter was a simple one: the former planned, the latter executed. A fighter was, by their very nature, delusional. They had to be. The amount of self-belief to step into the ring, to fight in front of an audience judging and nitpicking and scrutinizing you as if they owned you, and to still believe you were the best of the best beggared an ironclad conviction. Which was why the coach was there to see the bigger picture; to see the entire board, to correct what the fighter couldn't see, to give advice where the fighter sees nothing wrong.

And Suzy had stopped listening. Nicky wasn't a gloater (unless you were Italian), but she could feel that surge of triumph, the sharp rise of spirit as Suzy came to engage. They were in her territory now and she was going to make her regret every second of it.

The left jab she parried, stepping in and to the side as she raised her own right arm to bat it aside. The right she would have run right into, if she didnt turn her head to the side just on point of contact, letting it smush past her cheeks; painful, disorientating, but nothing that would stymie her momentum. She came in as close as possible to Suzy, so close that the pocket just didn't exist in the moment, as she slipped past Suzy's offenses, all while raising her hand up as she came in for a vicious overhand right

And went to town on her: trying to unload that vicious right into her face. If successful and the blow sent Suzy reeling, she would follow up with a punishing left uppercut as Suzy's stumbled from her initial blow, throwing all her might into the rising fist. Two powerful blows to the skull, one after another, sent with all the intent to finish the match.