Excerpt from Two Fisted Power

As I'll be doing from time to time, to showcase some of my writing, I am making this post feature a snippet from my writing. In this case, it will be a sample of my book, Two Fisted Power. Two Fisted Power, about an aging former boxing champion making a comeback, is finished and in the rewrite stage, with a ready for publishing date soon. I have to decided whether to push this book along the agent route or get some copies published independently on lulu.com or some other related self-publishing service before going the agent/major publishing company route. Anyway, here goes:

Andrew Davis threw his first connecting left jab in five years. It slammed hard into the face of Otis Brubeck, knocking him back. That’s it; the power was still there, he thought. That was a major relief. He followed that jab with a second jab, connecting with Otis’s chin, then followed with a right uppercut, which felt as if it nearly broke Otis’s neck. Otis fell into the ropes. Andrew went low with a left right combination to Otis’s midsection. Otis threw a right hook and Andrew was able to backstop and move out of the way. Good, his reflexes hadn’t slowed a bit. Andrew feinted with a left and as Otis tilted his head back, threw a straight right back into his jaw, then followed with another one two combination into Otis’s midsection. Another right uppercut and the weakened Otis Brubeck fell in the middle of the ring.
Referee Chaz Englehart began the count as Andrew walked to the neutral corner. He had seen this many times before. Otis struggled to get up, fell back down and the count reached ten. Andrew Davis, former world heavyweight champion winner by first round knockout. At ten, Andrew jumped up and down. The crowd broke out into cheers. Andrew leaned into the ropes and looked around the arena. He felt a sense of vindication. Before the fight he had felt a certain element of trepidation even though he had been in the ring many times before. Perhaps that was just natural on account of being away from the ring for so long.
Andrew looked around at the crowd. A first round knockout. It was good to be back. He had achieved many first round knockouts in his day, but this meant more to him because of how long he was perceived as being out of the game. He looked into the crowd and saw someone holding a sign with black market saying, “Andrew Davis, next heavyweight champion”. Another sign said, “the four time heavyweight champion”.
There was a thought, four-time heavyweight champion. In his excitement, he almost forgot about his opponent. He looked over at him. He was just getting up now, a little groggy, but seemingly okay. Andrew went over to him, put his hand on his shoulder and said, “good fight, man.”
“Yeah, while it lasted.”
There was nothing more for Andrew to say under the circumstances so he walked away. Jimmie Olbert, one of the broadcasters for the sports network ran over to Andrew with his cameraman and put a microphone in his face. “Hey Andrew, how does it feel to be back? That was a very impressive win, by the way.”
“Well, Jimmie, it felt like old times. I feel great. I did what I wanted to in the fight, I controlled the pace, and I scored a knockout. I knew coming in to this fight that if I didn’t knock him out convincingly that my skills at my age would be in question. It was absolutely important that I put him away and that I put him away in convincing fashion.”
“You did great, it was like 1985 all over again. Now, tell me, is there a plan to move all the way up to the heavyweight championship?”
“Oh yeah, certainly. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t hungry again for one more shot. I’m going all the way to the top.”
“Now that was an easy opponent, but how do you think it will be different when you step up in competition?”
“I’ll be ready, I have twenty years of skills developed as a pro. At this stage in my career, there isn’t much I haven’t come across yet.”
“I guess it’s not a stretch to say that you feel ready for a title shot now.”
“Not quite yet. I still need to get some cobwebs out.” Andrew’s trainer and good friend, Bill Engle, walked over and stood at his side. He added to the discussion, “I’ve been saying all along that when Andrew came back he would be a monster. He might be a bit older but he hasn’t lost a step.”
The crowd was applauding Andrew. That felt good; better than anything he had felt in a long time. Andrew walked back to the dressing room knowing that this fight went as well as he could have expected, if not even surpassing his expectations. This was a good idea, having a few easy tune up matches scheduled in local under cards to get the cobwebs out before stepping up to the real competition. It reminded him of the days beginning all those years ago fighting in county fairgrounds and small clubs, gaining all of that vital experience that he would need when he made it to fighting in arenas and fighting for championships. When he was starting out, he fought all sorts of opponents. He would take any one who came along and agreed to fight him so that one night he might have to fight some out of shape, overweight pug and then two weeks later a fighter with far more wins than losses. Eventually he stepped up to face the big undefeated contenders on his way to the inevitable title shot.
The crowd here gave, for the most part, a standing ovation. There were a few in the crowd booing, another aspect of the day that brought memories floating back to Andrew. All those wins. All that blood and media attention. It was good to be back.
In the dressing room, Andrew sat down on the chair. He smiled and said to Bill, “I didn’t even break a sweat in that fight. I feel like I could go for a few more fights.”
“This fight was low enough on the card that I think we could go for some more fights.”
Andrew laughed. Then he turned serious. “I can win in the ring. I wouldn’t even be doing this if I didn’t feel I could accomplish something in there again, but you know as well as I do that this is just the beginning. I think this’ll be the easy part.”
“Yeah, WBF is not too crazy about you coming back.”
“They were the ones who made it a pain in the ass for me to get my boxing license back, weren’t they?”


Andrew Davis was a former world champion who had the reputation coming back in fights that he was behind in. His epic 1985 battle for the WBF Heavyweight Championship against Rico Rosales saw Andrew hitting the canvas twice, seemingly behind on the scorecards and coming back and winning the championship, knocking Rosales out in the tenth round. It was the crowning achievement of his life to win that belt. He wasn’t the favorite of the committee of the WBF and wasn’t one of the media darlings so he had to earn his way to that match, beating contender after contender. Andrew knew that he wasn’t going to get a free ride out of anything. Hard work and hard work alone would get him to where he wanted to be.
Andrew knew that the key here was to keep fighting and winning. He had no problem starting out at the bottom again. Like Jaheim Evans said, he could have gotten a bigger level comeback fight, one that would be shown on one of the cable networks and get his comeback some exposure. To hell with that, he didn’t want to owe anyone anything; he just wanted to get his break and earn his way to the shot. If he kept winning fights, those scumbags in the WBF and all those other corrupt powers that be wouldn’t be able to ignore him. That was the key to keeping his comeback bid alive and prove all those people wrong who said he couldn’t comeback and be competitive after this time.

Andrew called a local promoter, Jim Fowley, who he had known over the years and had him line up a fight in Columbus, this one was to be only six days after the last fight. It was, of course, against another no name scrub, but that was what Andrew wanted. Someone else to be ready for a rapid knockout and give Andrew a chance to get rid of that ring rust. Bill Engle told him that he didn’t see any sign of ring rust in the last battle (well it really wasn’t much of a battle), the last fight, but Andrew felt that he needed to get another few fights in, while his comeback was still obscure. Word would travel soon about his path and it would then be harder to set up these obscure fights and the pressure would be on to step up. Then the fun would really begin.
The opponent was Taye Jefferson, a local carpenter who fought more or less only on weekends. His record was 20 wins and about 35 losses with 15 knockouts. He was about 280 pounds at six foot three, a big guy, perfect to test Andrew’s hooks and straight crosses and see if he still had the power. If he couldn’t put this guy away fast then maybe the comeback was a bad idea. It wasn’t about winning the fight, Andrew knew he could beat this pug easily; it was about the speed of the knockout. There would lay the test.