A Book of American Martyrs(219)
In the first several seconds of the first round it seemed evident: Aya was the quicker, Dunphy the more forceful. Very likely, Dunphy was outmatched by her taller, leaner, more mature and more devious opponent who stymied her with a rapid jab, a succession of blows, a way of moving to the side as if in retreat yet not in retreat but aggressively, unexpectedly pushing forward—so that the stocky-bodied, stronger boxer was led to throw punches wildly, that missed their mark, or, striking her opponent, were but glancing blows.
Aya wasn’t letting Dunphy get inside. So long as she could not get inside the shorter-armed boxer was helpless.
Naomi saw too, Dunphy wasn’t consistently keeping up her left glove. She was distracted, off-stride. A kind of panic must have set in as soon as Dunphy realized that her ring style would not be effective against an opponent who could so easily slip her hard-thrown punches, and was so much lighter on her feet.
When the bell rang, Naomi realized that her back teeth ached; she’d been clenching her jaws tight.
Truly she did not want D.D. Dunphy to win this fight, she did not want the name Dunphy to triumph. Yet she could not help it, she dreaded seeing Dunphy hurt. She had scarcely been able to breathe during the three-minute round.
If Dunphy could lose the fight without being hurt, knocked out.
She tried to see the fight as an event. A spectacle. Why did it matter to her who won?—neither boxer meant anything to her. Her own life was not affected in any way.
So far as Marika knew, Naomi Matheson was a documentary filmmaker with the intention of interviewing women boxers. It could not matter to her which boxer won this fight for her subject was women boxers and this would include those who lost as rightfully as those who won.
The second round was more intense and more hard-fought than the first. Aya was pressing Dunphy, forcing her to step back, misstep. Strange that the antelope was fierce in aggression, quick and deft and pitiless; the steer plodding, stoic, blindly pressing forward, determined not to betray weakness. In the corner between rounds Dunphy’s trainer Ernie Beecher must have been giving her urgent instructions which she could not follow.
By mid-fight Dunphy was panting, red-faced, cuts opening above both eyes from her opponent’s blows. Yet she prevailed, shoulders hunched, trying to protect her face and head with her raised gloves. She could not get inside, she could only punch frantically at her opponent’s arms and gloves.
“Who is winning?”—Naomi asked fight fans behind her after the fifth round.
“You kidding? ‘Icewoman.’”
She felt a low mean thrill of satisfaction, hearing this. Of course, it had to be true. She was feeling Dunphy’s humiliation in her own gut.
And that ridiculous and demeaning advertising on the back of Dunphy’s T-shirt—Give up! Give up! You don’t have a chance.
Yet, a few seconds into the sixth round Dunphy managed to strike her elusive opponent on the side of the head with one of her blindly-thrown blows. At once the dazzling Aya staggered, thrown back on her heels.
There came cries of disappointment and dismay from the crowd. Dunphy continued to swarm forward, throwing punches. Her broad doughy face was bleeding, contorted. She was breathing through her mouth. Though Dunphy was plodding and graceless the mercurial will of the crowd was shifting to her, to the flailing white girl-boxer, that she might overcome the other, more beautiful figure, out of a kind of perversity.
Dun-phy!
But Aya was too smart, and too experienced. Even in distress Aya knew to clinch, to punch at her opponent’s kidneys, to get through the round without collapsing.
And then in the next round, as if her corner men had injected her with a magical potion Aya seemed to have completely recovered. Or almost completely. She even danced about the slower-footed Dunphy, like a bullfighter taunting and tormenting a bull. And Dunphy was slow, leaden-legged. You could feel the effort required for her to lift her dense arms, to protect herself with her gloves.
And again, the will of the crowd had shifted from Dunphy. Aya was the favorite after all. Of course—“Icewoman” was the favorite: look how beautiful she is, how easily she moves, with what contempt she eludes the fierce-thrown blows of her opponent. When one of Dunphy’s feet slipped and she almost fell, and Aya took advantage to strike Dunphy hard on the side of the head with a lightning-quick blow, the crowd erupted in cheers and whistles.
Ay-a! A-ya!
Naomi saw, or believed she could see, small white scars in Dunphy’s eyebrows like bits of exposed bone amid streaks and smears of blood.
The round ended with flurries of blows from both women. Siri Aya too was breathing through her mouth. Not very steadily she “strode” back to her corner when the bell rang.
“Who won that round?”—Naomi asked, with dread.
“Can’t tell. Pretty close.”
“But is Aya ahead?”
“Yah. Aya ’way ahead.”
Yet in the following round Aya behaved unpredictably. She tried to clinch with Dunphy whenever she could—as if, for her, the fight was over: she had won on points. Barring an upset she could not not win the fight, she had only to prevail against her opponent. The crowd sensed this, and became restless. In frustration Dunphy threw off the other’s binding arms, and lunged forward blindly. For a moment the boxers teetered together, and might have fallen except Aya pushed away. Aya was back on her toes. Aya was smiling and taunting her opponent, mocking the other’s clumsiness.