Page:Fighting blood (IA fightingblood00witw).pdf/141

 This ain't what the ironworkers wants, and they howl for me to stand off and fight, while the bunch in the ringside boxes screams for me to hold on. Battling Lee wrenches away from me and lands solidly with a right to the head. I miss a left and right to the jaw, but connect with a right hook to the heart that stings Lee and makes him back water.

There's where I make a fatal mistake! Half goofy as I am, I think Lee's gone. I rush in wide open to send over the finisher, and that's what Lee's waiting for. He ducks my right and crashes a overhand left to my jaw. I went down like he shot me through the heart, and I suffer from that one punch till long after the fight's over. Honest, I'm in a trance from then on! I crawled to my feet in time to beat a count I can't even hear, cover up, and take a pasting I'll remember to my dying day. That round is two years long! Lee's too excited at the prospects of a knockout to time his blows, or I'd never of weathered the storm. As it is, I am floored three times in that horrible second round, and I'm on my shoulder blades at the bell.

The next four rounds is no fight, but a nightmare! I don't think I hit Battling Lee five solid punches, but he hit me with everything but the 's watch. The house is in one continual uproar, with the ironworkers imploring Lee to murder me, and be done with it, and the guys in the boxes howling for the referee to stop the assassination. Lee is battling me from pillar to post with cutting, slashing punches that rip me to ribbons. I must of been a sight for a dispensary along about the fifth round.