[Mister Saint]: 79.Contest Entries.One Last Shot

          "No."
          "What do you mean, no? You haven't even given me time to lay my offer out on the table, Champ."
          In a violet, pinstriped pimpsuit, sporting a pair of dark sunglasses even within the confines of my dressing room, Stanley Dorn was fast on his way to becoming the first man to taste my fist outside of the ring in over a decade. His calling in life was as a legal scumbag with all the moral fiber of a bowl of cereal, a man whose pockets ran deeper than the crooked wounds he'd made a career of inflicting upon the boxing world. I knew, even as my trainer put the final touches on the wraps for my hands, that to listen to Dorn's proposal would be the equivalent of career suicide. On the other hand...
          "You got two minutes, little man," I growled in my most unpleasant tone, "make it quick."
          Dorn's face contorted into a vicious, ugly smirk that might have, in another world, come across as a sign of victory. I sat quietly upon the dressing room's sole bench, keeping my mouth shut and my wits about me as always.
          "Champ, tonight is gonna be your last fight. We've been well informed of your decision to retire, and to be honest with you," Dorn slid his glasses down his slant of nose, eyeing me like some piece of meat in a butcher's freezer, "at your age, you should've been out of the game a long time ago. You shocked everyone when you won that heavyweight title, and you've kept it for a hell of a long time."
          "I know that," I interrupted him, lifting my heavily taped hands to inspect my trainer's work. It was good. The man knew his business. "I was there when I won the title. Get to the point." I smirked right back at him. "One minute."
          Dorn's confident grin and careful posture wavered just a bit in the face of my nonchalance. A quick swap of papers between his gnarly hands and the smooth ones of his babyfaced attorney told me exactly what he had come into my dressing room to offer. I shifted uncomfortably, more concerned with the fact that my trunks needed adjustment while my hands were occupied, laced into a pair of heavy gloves; crimson mallets that had seen a little blood in their day.
          "Do you know who your opponent is, Champ?" I scoffed a quiet scoff in reply. Of course I knew who my opponent was. "Cyrus Everingham," Dorn answered for me, "a heavyweight among heavyweights. He outweighs you by a good fifty pounds, not an ounce of fat on his body. Not afraid to fight dirty, and has the most spectacular knockout punch I've seen in twenty years in this business. The man could cut a tree down with his bare hands."
          My mind examined the options with the analytical savvy of a person whose back is to the wall. "He's young, and inexperienced," I countered, "I can figure him out." Dorn simply chuckled, shaking his headful of greasy hair back and forth.
          "Damn right he's young. Ten years younger than you, Champ. Five rounds after you're out of wind, that kid will be finished warming up." The papers, so cautiously guarded within his ring-weighted fingers, passed to my trainer. "What I'm offering you is a little under-the-table settlement in exchange for your cooperation."
          My eyes narrowed into hateful slits.
          "You son of a bitch...!"
          "Hold on now," the scumbag's hands came up in a gesture of submission, "hold on. I'm the one getting the raw deal here. Two point five million in U.S. currency, and you get to go out on top, in good health. The only thing I get is... some well placed bet returns." His devious smile returned, the black of his goatee framing his pretty-boy mouth so that he looked like he had three lips.
          "You want me to take a dive?" I stood up, livid that this snivelling runt could have the audacity to try and buy me off. "I am the world heavyweight champion. I ain't some walterweight your checks can bounce around. I ain't doing the job for this kid, or anybody else. I'm gonna fight my last match, and win or lose, I'm going out of this business with my dignity!" The outburst had garnered the attention of some of the other fighters, also-rans whose luck hadn't come or hadn't sufficed in the ring. Some of the older guys echoed my sentiments, while the younger ones just watched, and learned a little. 
          "If you fight Cyrus he'll beat you like a government mule, and you'll lose that belt anyway. Cut your losses, Champ, and let's make some money together."
          My trainer stood up and stepped to one side, the preparations for my gloves complete. "You ain't kidding, I'm the champ," I answered Dorn for the last time, "and a champion belongs in that ring, giving everything he's got even if he's got nothing left but a hearbeat." My shoulder shoved Dorn out of the way as I started walking, ignoring his increasingly frantic cries for my attention. I left my trainer, my cut man, my manager... all of them standing there in my wake, powerless to help or hurt me. I had made my decision... and that was to walk the path that I had started a decade before, to see it through to its end. "I am the champ," I reminded myself as the white of the hallway opened into the impossibly vast expanse of the arena, "and quittin' ain't in a champion's blood."
          Wanna know who won the match? It doesn't matter. That is not what this is about, winning or losing. It's about having the guts to take the hard road and drag your ass along to the bitter end, no matter how tough the path, and no matter how attractive that easy road looks. It's about doing what you know in your heart is right, even if it means fighting the longest fight of your life, and maybe, just maybe, losing.