A lot of males think they are badasses, with or without a wolf. The problems start when they find themselves emasculated by a woman, which is inevitable, in these relationships. But as long as you let it be by your talents instead of by your insults, most will adjust, self-secure.

My gym had a boxing ring in it--not that I was a boxer, just the owner once was. I was in the habit of calling him Rocky. Of course, since the man was a lightweight classed Hispanic-Philippino mix who identified more with black culture--adored the Creed movies--he absolutely hated when I called him that.

"Yo, Rocky!"

A mangled slurry of English, Spanish, French, and Tagalog stumbled their way past his lips. When he was mad, even his English was unintelligible. It stopped suddenly. "You! You, in the ring, now!"

I grinned at that. I would never be a lightweight, being a good foot taller than the little guy. Not that this guaranteed a win. I had my backside handed to me on a daily basis by this man.

It only took me moments to be up in the ring, and yeah, I pissed him off. Not that he lost anything close to his control over the fight. If anything he got coldly calculative and hit a hair harder than he would otherwise. I often came out of this bruised.

Today he caught me with an uppercut. If I didn't have a concussion, it was a damned close thing. He glared down at me with his hands on his hips. "When are you going to seriously train for a match, son?"

"I don't like catching concussions enough to do this for real."

"You'd catch less of them if you were serious about this instead of always trying to piss off the coach."

This was back in 2013, after Fallon Fox (MMA) cracked the orbital bone of a born female opponent (2012) and got a suspension after the uproar. Now, of course, this Trans had a 5-1 win record, as a woman, so she? he? (I can't get this consistently straight...) wasn't perfectly superior to the born female opponents. As Rhonda Roussy pointed out, no matter the concept of what she was, bone structure doesn't play fair. Male-born bones are denser, the shape of the pelvic bone on men saves some wear and tear on knees, so that's areas of weakness that are unfair due to what you are born as.

And watch, people will argue on this.

But I wasn't focused on that 1 loss of Fallon's. I should have been. Any edge of superiority does not equal guaranteed. That is what can make an unfair fight interesting.

But the chauvinist that I can be spoke up, like a beast from inside me. "You find a girl that can beat me, I'll take you up on that offer."

Hell, chalk it up to being hit too hard, too. Brain just didn't think out what this man would do to get his way.

Now, I was not subjugating myself to the vaguely equalizing treatments that Fox was. That means no estrogen jacking with muscle formation, for example. The gap between me and a woman the same size as me should be wider and harder to win against. To make matters worse, my height isn't a given in men--case in point the man who handed me my ass, yet again. A woman would almost be guaranteed to be smaller as well as weaker.

But I went about the rest of my day being smug and secure in the fact that boxing would always be recreational to me.

~~~~

"Yo, Rocky!"

"I've got your woman, son."

I had already forgotten that I had made a very weird Neanderthal flex just the day before. I turned to face this hottie with tawny skin and long straight blonde hair. Man, my heart flipped over, reversed its beat, something.

What I should have noticed was that she looked a lot like her damned father. Daddy isn't going to bring in his little girl if he thought she'd get hurt. Social cues, people. I finally broke eye contact with the little goddess and turned to my Rocky and retorted, "I don't want to break her pretty face, man, I wasn't that serious."

"So, you're not a man of your word."

I sputtered for a second. "I was jesting."

"Ah, but what does the good book say? 'Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.' Quit spittin' and get your white butt up here."

I had to assume he was talking about the Bible. Phillippinos are roughly between 80%-90% Christian, 90% of that being Catholic. The American Hispanic religious affiliation wasn't a much lower percentage, maybe 75%. I didn't recognize this particular quote, but I'd caught him quoting more recognizable things over the past five years.

I reluctantly poured my ass onto the ring. "I really don't want to hurt her, Hoss."

That one, he usually found more amusing than Rocky. I don't know why the sweet, soft, giant son from Bonanza amused him. Adam was more his attitude, and Little Joe was the heartthrob of the era. Not that I got it--any of it, as its like my great-grandpa's favorite show.

The girl just looked at her father, muttered low, but not low enough, "Is it right for mates to hit each other?"

"Oh, I'd like to be more than a mere friend"--and I leered at her. Coach just leaned over and plucked me right between the eyes, "You respect my daughter, you hear?"

First, ow! Second, his daughter? He wouldn't have put her up here if he didn't think she could take me down a peg. Again, I should have been warned. But all I remember thinking was that his little girl was 12 when I first started coming here at 19. It's been 6 years, so she's barely legal. I try to stay away from women that young, at 25, because jail bait always tries to pass themselves off as barely legal. Last thing you want to do is get tangled with a fake ID that shows a woman of 18, and find out she's 14, or even younger. Plenty of girls look grown as children. Scary world.

But I know this one is about 18 because she was his only child. "Fine, I'll take your girl on a date, be a gentleman and all that, but I'm not hitting her. Choose a woman that can take the hit."

I think she would have bit me if I stood any closer to her. "This...this... nanghihina...is going down."

I didn't process what she said. At first, I thought she called me the N word, of all things. But she squared up so I shrugged and responded in kind.

As soon as the fight started, she faked me out and gave me an uppercut from the pits of hell. I swear, I must have looked like Bluto from an old Popeye cartoon. Did my feet leave the canvass? I was caught cold, and couldn't deny it.

~~~

I was enrolled in my first amateur fight that month. Generally, I was set up against his daughter or another aspirant (when they were in at the same time as me) as I was working on form, and he wanted to watch. She was actually a couple inches taller than her father, having at least an equal reach, so it's not like I was worrying about hitting someone who was tiny--not like that was large, either.

The day before I went up against him, and man, even I could see the improvements. He wasn't going after me, more holding back for my sake--neither of us wanted me to be taken out before this bout.

I was also told no sex the night before my match...and yeah, I somehow managed to sweet-talk my way into a date with the girl who got me in this predicament...or so I thought. Being full of yourself doesn't fade too quickly. But the point was I currently wasn't having sex, as I thought it was too early, but I couldn't have that conversation with the man. Just a "Yes, sir!"

~~~

I won. Kind of surprised me because the other guy wanted to win. Coach said I'm not hungry, which isn't good for a fight. Of course, my girlfriend--we made it public after the fight--made a bet with me, the gist of which is that I don't get to retire until I can beat her in the ring.

I wasn't near as worried about her as before, but I know the stats, and it made no sense as to why I struggled to keep up with her. It was driving me nuts, so I was all in for trying to figure her out on the canvass.

I actually got pretty damn serious about it all for a while, took on about 6 months worth of fights--not frequent.

I won 5 out of the 6. I tried her twice a month, never won--never really got more than a minute in, either.

I finally had enough, after that last round with her--I had lost my first public match, and lost to her again, so my ego was plain not having it.

"Why?! Why the fuck do I always end up here?! There is no way that this should be happening." Now, I was saying this prone on the canvass-it was very much happening.

"You know the weaker person can occasionally win, right?"