Virani MacVicar vs. Lexi Mills – Round 1: Jabbed

As remembered by Virani MacVicar

Virani MacVicar’s mouthpiece was in. There was a girl across from her who had signed on the dotted line to fight her, and a referee to mediate the proceedings. She couldn’t be happier. This was a landmark for her, an actual title defence of her championship. Sure it was just a national title, but it was hers, and this Lexi girl thought she could take it from her. Virani would be keen to make a statement win, especially to Hee Jung Park, who was in the crowd. Seeing Lexi get knocked out definitively would give her a mental edge, heck, maybe she’d chose to go back into retirement.

Then the ring of the bell meant there was no more time for thinking about that stuff. It was time to do it.

It was pretty noticeable that she was a bit bigger than Lexi, which was a bit weird. It felt like an unfair advantage. She and Lexi had weighed in at the same amount at the weigh in, but now she was probably 8 pounds heavier than she had been yesterday at the weigh-in, just putting back all the weight she had drained to get down to the 126 pound limit. Lexi looked about the same. Well, Virani was playing by the rules. Too bad for Lexi.

Virani stayed nice and calm at the beginning, while Lexi immediately started to shuffle her feet and throw jabs from a distance. Okay. Whatever. That’s not going to work. I’m the taller girl here. I try to walk Lexi down, but as soon as I put the slightest pressure on her, she gets on her bike and moves away. Annoying.

Lexi went back to the jab, and this time changed levels, targeting my body. That one landed pretty good. Okay. So she’s showing me the jab. That’s just a tool. An annoying tool, but that might just be it.

Annoyingly, Lexi stuck to her plan of using the jab as her primary weapon. Okay, that’s not what I was expecting. I knew Lexi was a boxer, but she was expecting bit more of a conventional style, this was like a hit and move style taken to the extreme. Okay, that just means I have to adjust. I’ll stalk her down and then start landing power punches. Simple enough. But Lexi didn’t want to play my game, she kept dancing out of range and smacking me with an array of jabs. Most of which I was able to block, but every time I tried to open myself up just a little, she’d fire a jab. A few of them didn’t have much on them, but one or two had some decent heat on them and jolted my head back when they landed.

“Come on, Virani!” came the shouts from the crowd and from Thomas. “Pick up the pace!”

Yeah, I’m trying here, I’m trying to make a statement win, not get pecked to death by some bantamweight who doesn’t know her place. Still, the early story of the fight is not one I’m very keen on. Lexi is winning the round by landing punches. Stupid, inconsequential punches, but punches nonetheless. It’s like a cowardly way of fighting, but it’s working, which is….annoying. The more time this girl hangs around, the more time there’s a possibility of a fluke punch landing, or perhaps even worse, my reputation be damaged by the fact that I let this useless girl hang around and win rounds against me. Not exactly what I want to do ahead of my big match.

It’s time to put the pedal to the medal. I duck under a few jabs and finally get within range to throw a nice right hook, but Lexi puts her guard up and blocks it easily, then steps inside to smother any other punches that I may have thrown! The heck! This girl’s not here to fight, she’s just here to frustrate! Can she really think she can win like this?

Okay, Virani, think, she commanded herself. How do we counter this strategy.

Catch her when she comes in, she thought immediately. She’s got shorter arms, so if she’s able to hit me, I’m able to hit her, I reasoned. The problem was with me not being very active, Lexi got to pick where and when she ducked into range. It made me miss embarrassingly a few times as she backed out when she thought she was going to punch, but at least she didn’t seem interested in taking advantage of it, she was just happy to peck from range. She didn’t want any part of actually trading punches with The Canadian Cobra.

Still, catching Lexi on the counter seemed like a good idea at the moment. I have enough power that if I landed something, it might actually be the decisive and impressive knockout that I wanted. But it was one thing to have a plan, it was another to actually execute it. I saw Lexi come in to throw a jab to the body and I torqued my body to throw a vicious left hook that had the ability to end the fight if it landed right.

But it didn’t even land at all. I had misjudged the distance and my left hook fell well short, while Lexi’s punch landed in my midsection, producing a little grunt from me. That punch had a little something on it. Not too much, but enough to make it sting.

Frustrated, I stepped forward and pushed Lexi into the ropes and forced a break, getting a warning for the ref for my behavior. Thanks, ref. Earn that paycheck.

I was annoyed that I was losing the first round in my title defence. This was not how this fight was supposed to go. I really felt like I had been taken out of my gameplan and was a bit out of sorts. So, I went back to what I did best, go on the offensive. Annoyingly, it was proving to be quite difficult. I just couldn’t get to grips with what I needed to do against a smaller, quicker fighter that was content to just spoil the fight.

I stalked forward, blocking a few sniping jabs from Lexi. Once I got into range I fired a 1-2, hoping that I might be able to get momentum going back my way at the end of the round, but Lexi avoided both with good movement. She wasn’t interested in counterattacking, but she was doing a good job of making me miss. It was really the first time I’d had this particular problem. But it was also the first time I was facing such a fighter.

Virani v. Lexi 5

I wasn’t able to land much of anything before the bell rang to end one of the most mediocre rounds of my career. I’d had worse rounds, but few were as annoying at this one had been. I retreated to my corner and sat down on the red stool. Thomas did the usual, taking out my mouthpiece and giving me a quick drink of water while I stewed on the round that was.

“Okay, well that did not go as expected. But it’s just one round,” said Thomas. “She’s clearly got a different plan than we were expecting so we have to adjust. I want you to stalk her down and take away her space. Cut off the ring on her. Then lets go to the body, see if you can slow her down…”

I stared across the ring, and Lexi was looking across from me and smiling. What the hell!

“Virani…are you listening to me, or are you staring at that girl?”

“Listening,” I responded, not entirely truthfully.

“Let’s get on track this round, and we’ll be fine, okay? Just be patient. This fight will come to us.”

I made eye contact with my coach, “Gotcha Tom.”

The referee yelled, “Seconds out!” and I stood from my stool to get ready for another round.

Virani v. Lexi 6

Okay, I thought. That had been a poor round, and maybe I had been a bit distracted, but there were 9 rounds to go, I had plenty of time to make Lexi regret taking this fight.

And I still intended to make a statement here.

Virani MacVicar
Virani MacVicar
Current Featherweight champion. A Canadian puncher known for her knockouts that has developed a more all-round style.