Lia Harrison vs Esther Savato-Howell

Standard match
1 fall
Victory condition: The first wrestler who achieves victory will be the victor.

Esther "The Storm" Savato-Howell stepped out to a rousing cavalcade of boos. She ignored them, blowing a few haughty kisses to the crowd as she traveled down the ramp. If they hated her, it was because they were jealous of the sheer power of her face punching. It was only natural that they would be envious of someone so much better at it than they could ever be. Climbing up the stairs, Esther stopped at the apron, wiping her boots gently before climbing inside the ropes. She bounced back and forth on her feet, throwing a few gentle shadow punches to loosen herself up as she awaited her opponent.

Lia's entry got a much less negative response. Actually, it didn't really get much of a response. People recognized her, though not many of them. Even in a company like the AFW, the full roster of which would give an abstract artist a heart attack, pale white skin still was a rarity; there just wasn't any artificial treatment to make skin paler.

The entering Canadian waved and smiled at the audience down the ramp, but she was for the most part nervous. It'll be alright, this is just a match, you must've done this a hundred times now. Lia reassured herself. Her opponent didn't look too much bigger or stronger than her, although all those boos she heard backstage must've been directed at someone. Ah well, not like she could back out now. Lia climped in, over the ropes, her boots on the mats.

"Uh... Hi there, I'm Lia. Uhm... good luck..." the pale girl shyly greeted her opponent-to-be, normal procedures for a normal match.

Esther regarded her pale opponent with a derisive smile, "Oh, dear, you look like you need get out every once in a while." She laughed as though she had told a hilarious joke. Esther threw a couple of quick punches at the air, "But you're gonna need a LOT more than luck to take me down, hun." She hopped back and forth on the balls of her feet, "Tell ya what, when that bell rings, you go ahead and climb out of those ropes and just go backstage. Don't look back. Nobody will blame you, and I won't have to break that cute little porcelain face of yours." She bounced her fists off each other, "Because these girls, they don't play nice." She shook her right fist, "This is the lightning," And then her left, "And this is the thunder, hun. And there is NO stopping this storm."

Esther would wait for the bell to ring, and, in the quite likely event Lia did not take her advice, she would charge toward the girl, leaping at her and aiming a jumping punch right at the girl's face.

Wow. That was a lot of confidence, but Lia was pretty used to hearing stuff like that. After all, Lia always looked like she just came from a blood donation or five. Her opponent tonight seemed like... a boxer, maybe? Something to do with punching, for sure. "Uhm... Ok..." she responded, a much more nervous face, just in time for the bell to ring.

She could do this, this match won't be too - "Uahh!!" the pale girl saw the blonde girl jumping and then her eyes closed in sudden pain, and the first punch landed hard above the nose, sending Lia back a few steps, one hand covering an eye, rubbing at the spot for a few seconds. Which would probably give the other girl enough time to try something else. If for whatever reason she didn't, Lia would try quickly moving close to the boxing blonde, before diving at her, try and bring her down.

Esther's flying punch struck home. "Ka-pow! There we go, let's put some color on those cheeks, shall we?" Esther was quick to follow up, but quicker to taunt. After she teased Lia, she moved in, swinging her other hand at Lia's gut in another powerful punch.

Lia probably wouldn't have a response to that even if she had the time to talk. And with the boxer coming in fast already, she didn't have that time. Hand off her head, Lia guessed that Esther would go for the face again, so she ducked.

She ducked pointlessly, it turned out. "Uaagh!" the Canadian took a step back, clutching at her stomach.

"C'mon, Whitey, at least make me work for it!" Esther was in her groove now. She bounced between her feet as if the ring were a trampoline. She stepped in to grab Lia and whip her to the far ropes. Letting the girl bounce back, Esther rushed in to meet her, arm outstretched, with a clothesline across the girl's neck.

This wasn't a good start, but that just meant Lia would have to work to get it back. Lia rolled down, feeling Esther's arm edge over her. It was easy enough, since she felt like falling over anyways. Lia paused for half a second to breathe, before running back towards Esther, coming at her with a clothesline of her own. Hopefully this would do something, maybe if Lia was lucky, Esther wouldn't have another skin color joke either.

Esther's arm hit nothing but air, and her momentum carried her to the ropes at the opposite end. She barely had time to process the shock of her missed attack before she had sprung off and was running in the opposite direction. "Oh sh--" She saw a great pale arm and that was it. The clothesline knocked her clear off her feet. She slammed into the mat, clutching her chest in pain.

She did have plenty of things to say about Lia at the moment but they were more off-color than skin color. Luckily, she had neither the air nor the inclination to verbalize them at the moment.

There was something satisfying about being able to make Esther quiet, "Whitey" jokes get old real fast. Not that Lia was going to say something in her place. Taunting the boxer wasn't going to make the match tonight any easier.

It'd be better to get something done before Esther got up though, so Lia would pull her up by the armpits, and assuming that Esther wasn't going to lash out (probably foolishly), Lia would whip her over to the other side of the ring, over to the opposite ropes.