Round 1: Just a foster kid
"You won't amount to shit if your grades keep up like this!" I can almost remember my step mom yelling at me.
"Yea? What's it to you?"
"What it is, Mr. I'm-too-good-to-be-normal, is that you won't go anywhere if you don't step up your game."
"I'm trying! Just give me some time!"
I trotted over to my room and slammed the door, this was getting familiar. I'd just sit here for a few hours until I go to sleep and then she'd come right back in, if she couldn't yap about grades it'd be about something else. She hated my dream, all I ever wanted to do was box. Fucking hell I only lived with her for about a month and she's acting like she didn't take me in to appease her husband and try to fix a failing marriage. I knew better, it's been over 60 years and I've already been down a road somewhat like that myself.
She got her divorce papers within a month later. With that she beat me a few times, oh baby I remember that belt. It'd be hard to forget with the scar above my neck, just below my face. When she finally turned me into another foster home, this time completely across the country. I learned to fight. My grades never improved, but my right hook sure as hell did.
TWENTY YEARS LATER: WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING ROUND ONE
"You got this kid, he's not your first fight, you've gotten 21-0 and you aren't makin that 21-1 yet you hear me?"
My trainer was an old Zebra, an outcast from other gyms in Equestria. He wasn't allowed after training somepony that lost at the world championship years ago. Like I said earlier, he's an old man. It didn't take much to think about it but I sure as hell remembered that day we bumped into eachother at the gym.
"Alright, what's his name again?"
"Kelioni Karborev, he's a Prussian."
In the next twelve minutes I spent shadow boxing, waiting for the time to come that I'd get in the ring. And when it came I was ready.
Kelioni wasn't much taller than me, although he did have a few pounds. We were both in the 150 weight class, lightweight boxers. He liked to wear his iconic 'Black and Blue' Colors whereas my shorts were plain red. We pounded gloves, and he said something in Prussian. I couldn't understand it. We walked to our corners and waited for the bell.
It banged like a gunshot, ringing throughout the stadium. The crowd's roar was deafening. We circled around eachother, waiting to see who'd take the first swing. I'm an offensive fighter but he is too, so we both are fighting by our weak suits here. He did a double take, swinging left and then right. I weaved through them and swung right into his lower jaw, throwing him back. He didn't expect offense from somepony getting swung at.
He ran towards me using the force of him hitting the bars. I ducked under his swing and turned around to meet his gaze again. He swung hard with a right hook, which I parried with a swing and used the force to throw a left haymaker. He ducked under it and swung into my body, it knocked the wind out of me and I stumbled out to catch my breath. He was far on me though. I had to hold him off for the next minute so the bell could do my bidding. Time is everyponies opponent, and it's undefeated.
He surprised me with a throw right to the face, which threw my spit all over the floor. I didn't fall, I just rushed into him and locked my arms around him, which automatically called for the refs to split us up and make us bump gloves again. Once he did he whispered something.
"I'm coming for you."
Right when the ref was out of the way he swung close to my face, only missing by an inch. I threw a hook to the ribs, and followed up with an uppercut to the gut. I pushed him back a bit, I needed space. He ran towards me and threw a swing at my face, his problem was he was too ambitious. He had 10 seconds to lay me out, and same here, within the first round. He bounced at me, and I shuffled away from his offense. Then when he let his guard down for a second I threw a straight swing to his mouth.
The bell rung, it'd been two minutes. We walked to our corners and stared eachother down.
I remembered my first fight, it was what got me into the correctional center. It was about something some kid said about my mom. We were sitting down at lunch in my school, and he just popped off. I can't remember what he said, but I'll never forget the fight. The kids circled round after I threw a hook right into his temple. This was in Appleousa, we loved fights. He stood up and grabbed my shirt. I knew that whenever a grab comes a punch follows after. I didn't fiddle with the grip and instead threw a body shot. He hunched over and lost his grip.
I slammed my elbow down against his arm and swung a leg right into his knee. He fell to the ground. I jumped on him and punched until he was a dark red pulp. He had to go to the hospital. Broken jaw, three missing teeth, swollen shut eye, and a mild concussion.
They tried to pin me with assault, and succeeded. They wanted me in for months but the fights just got worse and worse.
I regret nothing, it all got me where I am now and where I was then.
Author's Note
Here's a good ole boxing story for you boxing lovers 
. If any of you are like me you LOVE fighting, and if you follow the hunter and the hunted then I'm sure you know how much I love fight scenes.
I had a lot of friends wanting something like this, so here you go.
It's hard remembering when I was a kid, though I sure remember the fights.
I remember my first fight in the lunchroom, reasons didn't matter, that was when I got my cutie mark. I kept fighting from there, every day, to one day get out of the slums. I'm pretty sure our lives are predetermined, something like that. Looking back in my life, I think that when I started fighting was when I really started to understand. I was a lot like my father, more than I'd hope to admit.
What I remember about him most was when I'd come home from school. He was laying on the couch, a bottle of beer spilled across the carpet, five more empty or almost gone strewn across the stand that he had placed the remote on, or at least tried. His cutie mark was a boxing glove as well. Almost fitting, almost. He tried his hardest not to fight other ponies but instead fight that mark. He worked at a fish packing plant, he simply operated a machine that put sardines in their neat lines. Looking back at it now, he was a lot like one of those sardines. He was trapped in his own little container, neatly packed in line with others like him. Or at least supposed to be like him.
I walked gently past him, sure not to awake him. He had work the next day, and it was getting late. I remember when I'd awake, he'd yell at another sardine packed in the same box. That sardine would be my stepmother. She wasn't cruel, not really, more apathetic. She didn't understand his drinking habit. She wasn't memorable, I don't even remember what she looked like. I remember my old stallion though.
He was a very very tall pony, they called him the Clydesdale of the bunch. Whatever that was supposed to mean. It didn't get passed down to me though. His mane was a rugged dark blue, almost navy, with spots of fur missing and leaving dark pink wells in their place. One was under his right eye, he'd take lots of hits there and surely it didn't heal right. His face was slightly lopsided in the direction as well, as if he was a slight curve. That look imposed itself everywhere else in his body. I suppose you have to fight when you look like that.
Like I said though, I don't remember much.
What I remember was when my stepmom walked through the door for the last time I saw her. I think I was 15 when that happened.
"You're not my son anymore boy. Get out."
"What?"
"You fucking heard me kid, get out of my house."
"You don't pay the rent you can't kick me out!"
"I do now kid, Dad's gone for good now get out of my house."
I almost didn't believe her, so I figured if I waited outside the door, he might come home and see. It was cold outside, and I had no jacket, but he'd be home soon.
Ten minutes grew to ten hours, ten hours grew to 24 hours. My stepmom had come out to go to work.
"You been here all day kid?"
"Can I go inside please?"
"Fuck off kid."
She turned her back and kept walking. I followed her out the door. That was when I'd heard what'd happened. There were newspapers outside of the apartment complex, they all had the same headline. There'd been an accident at the fish packing plant, and three people died. Someone forgot to turn off a machine, and when someone bumped into a group of people they all fell in. They were grounded into a paste. People were to return all products they'd gotten from the plant until an investigation was complete.
There were pictures, and in one I saw that same lopsided face, the patch of skin missing from under his eye. It was a picture from his ID. I stood up, put that paper in my pocket and went back to the apartment. The door was locked, so I kicked the door in and took two things. A small folding knife my father owned, his watch, and my coat.
I still won't go back to the Bronx today.
