Black eye & bloody knuckles

Today in the gym I was grappling with this guy we will call, “The Marine” from now on. I have been paired with him a lot ever since he first started training here a couple years back. He’s an arrogant asshole and I fucking hate this guy always talking about his “Semper Fi” bullshit and how he’s going easy on me! My uncle’s a fucking Drill Sergeant in the Marines and I can own his ass easy, so The Marine’s little rants didn’t really mean much to me. But he really challenges me physically and mentally so I tolerate him.

That was until this afternoon. Today we were grappling and ONLY grappling! Grappling is basically the art of fighting without hitting your opponent. You focus on locks, holds, throws and pinning. We were about 10 minutes into our practice and I was dominating The Marine which was really starting to piss him off! The more angry he got, the easier it was for me to control him. He came at me and knocked me off my feet, then got on top of me. I easily reversed our positions and got him in a chokehold expecting him to tap out. Instead he elbowed me in the ribs! 

Obviously I was stunned! I instantly let go and I sat there for a few moments trying to recover from a pretty hard strike. I guess he finally realized what he had done and he started to apologize and said it was a reflex and was very sorry. A couple of the guys watching hurled some of the standard swear words at him and threatened to kick his ass for pulling shit like that again. I foolishly excepted his apology and after taking a minute to shake it off we got into it again. I honestly forgave him after that first strike because I had to! I am one of those guys that isn’t a very effective fighter when I get angry. I stop thinking and I start making mistakes. So I let it go.

He gets me and I tap out. He releases me and he has the cockiest smile ever plastered across his face. I take a deep breath and clear my mind as best as I can and we go at it again. I get him pinned relatively fast, and then he elbows me in the face! I fall on my back stunned. He’s on all 4’s at my feet looking at me with a shocked expression on his face. There’s this little voice inside my head begging me to let it go, and for a second I almost listen to it, but then I don’t! I grab him by his neck with my legs and I just start punching him with all my strength. I got in a good 5 punches before the guys watching pulled us apart. As the guy holding me pulled me to my feet I remember screaming, “What now bitch!? You want some more!?”, as I struggled to break free, and then instantly being horrified with myself for being such a jackass! I calmed down immediately after that.

In the aftermath, The Marine got himself tossed out because this was apparently the last in a long line of bad behavior from him. Afterwards a bunch of the guys took me out for a few rounds of beer. Before we started to get our drink on the guy who owns the place we train at held up his drink and said, “I aint never seen RGB lose his shit like that and it was fucking awesome! To RGB!!”. There were simultaneous cheers and then we drank. A lot. 

My face hurts and my hands ache. It’s already 11pm and I can’t sleep even though I’ve been up since 5am. This is going to be one of those nights where I don’t sleep much.