Chapter 15 State Championship III

"What are you doing today, practicing guitar?"

At night, at the Aloft Hotel in downtown Orlando, Link came out of the bathroom after taking a shower. He received two messages from Taylor on his phone, asking him what he did today and saying that she was at the East Village Music Studio in Manhattan. He recorded music and said he wrote a song for him.

After seeing Taylor's message, Link didn't want to reply. After the last music festival, Taylor only briefly met him once, left him a guitar, asked him to continue practicing, and then ran away on a plane.

The last time the two of them walked down the street hand in hand, Link thought they were in love, and he felt a little excited. After all, she was Taylor Swift. If a small miner can find a big star, he is definitely a salty fish, with a toad riding on her. On the back of the silver dragon.

But then the music festival came, and the two met less often, and their relationship became dull. After Taylor left Miami, although the two occasionally chatted, they would not be as casual as before.

This hot and cold relationship makes Link feel very awkward. He is a boxer and likes to be straightforward and get to the point when interacting with women.

Falling in love seems too advanced to him. He can't play it and enjoy the passion brought by this kind of relationship. It will also delay training and competition.

Love is also one of the taboos of boxers.

This is one of the things coach Liu told him to pay attention to.

Lao Liu said that when a boxer starts to fall in love or gets married, his time and attention will be distracted by other things, and his strength will inevitably decline.

Link kept this in mind.

After seeing Taylor's message, Link thought for a while and briefly told Taylor about today's events. There was only one thing, the game.

He fought three games today at the Amway Arena, winning the first game by KO in the third round.

The second game went more smoothly than the first. His opponent was a fat white boxer, a power player. He exchanged heavy punches with Link from the beginning, which played into Link's plan.

In the first round, Link punched 15 times, hitting his opponent 4 times and knocking him down 2 times. His opponent punched more than 40 times, hitting his effective parts 7 times, and once hit his face, almost knocking him down.

In the second round, Link punched 10 times and knocked down his opponent 2 times; his opponent punched 8 times and hit his effective part 3 times.

In the third round, the opponent adopted a defensive stance and wanted to use delaying tactics to slow down the progress of the game.

Link didn't want to give the opponent time to rest. 20 seconds after the start of the game, he used a set of combination punches to break through the opponent's defense, and then used an uppercut to knock the opponent to the ground.

If the opponent falls to the ground and cannot get up for ten seconds, the referee declares him the winner.

The situation in the third game was a bit more complicated. The opponent was a Mexican with a very strong body and strong fighting ability. It took him five rounds, knocking down the opponent six times and making the opponent's nose bleed before winning the game.

After three games, he also successfully entered the state championship finals.

“Can you make it to the tournament finals?”

Taylor texted back and asked.

"Of course! 100% sure."

"Okay, when you play in the finals, I will go there to cheer you on."

"That `s a deal."

Link smiled and decided not to let Taylor leave until she arrived.

"Link, do you want to go shopping?"

Mario asked as he and Reggie burst into the room side by side.

"Don't go!"

"Why don't you go change clothes and shoes?"

"Running! I didn't have time to run in the car in the morning, so I'll make up for it now."

After speaking, Link ran out of the room wearing running shoes, a hooded sweatshirt, and headphones.

Mario and Reggie stared blankly at his running back.

"After playing a game all day, you have to run at night?"

"Is he a human? He is definitely not a human!"

"I'm so envious. Link's physical strength is so good."

"Reggie, leave him alone. Let's go shopping. I heard that there are many hot girls at Universal Studios in Orlando. Hehe, you must pick one up tonight."

"Mario, I thought about it and decided not to go. I'm going for a run too. You can go alone."

Reggie scratched the blond hair on his head, returned to the house, put on his sportswear and running shoes, and went downstairs for a run.

Mario stood blankly at the door, looking at the empty corridor, and suddenly felt that the air around him was a little cold.

——

Orlando is in central Florida, more than fifty or ten miles away from the Atlantic Ocean. There are more types and density of trees here than in Miami Beach. The morning air is also fresher and cooler than Miami. There is no smell of sea breeze. It feels good to run here in the morning.

There was a race in the morning. Link only ran five kilometers before returning to the hotel for dinner. Mario saw him coming back from running, his face dark and smelly, as if he had eaten mealworms after eating bread. Link was too lazy to pay attention to him and quickly made breakfast. , rushed to the Amway Arena to participate in the game.

After two rounds of elimination rounds, only the last four boxers of each level are left. One person will be eliminated in the next two rounds, and the remaining three will determine the champion, runner-up, and third runner-up, and qualify for the Southeast Division.

There were more spectators present today than yesterday, basically staying at more than 4,000 people, and the front row seats were basically full.

"Hey, look over there. Why is there a poster of Link there?"

Mario pointed to the front row of the auditorium, where several young girls were holding up a poster of Link.

On the poster, Link is wearing red gloves, revealing his strong figure and iron-like muscles, coupled with his handsome face and faint blue eyes, which are better than those of Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible 3" The shape is also cool.

"That's cool, Link should go to Hollywood."

"They are Link's boxing fans. Link has a boxing fan." Reggie said enviously.

"Impossible, it's only the second day, how can there be boxing fans coming to support?" Mario turned to Link, "Did you pay for it yourself, otherwise how would they get your photo to use as a poster? "

"I'm not that boring." Link smiled.

West shook his head, "Yesterday's game was reported on local Orlando TV stations and Fox News Network. On the official Orlando news website, there are also news and pictures of the game, including Link's photo."

Mario searched it on his phone, and sure enough it was there.

"Hey, Link, how do you feel now that you're famous?" Mario asked with a look of envy and jealousy.

"It feels really good to be liked."

Link smiled and put on his headphones to listen to music.

At around nine o'clock in the morning, the third round of competition officially started. The heavyweight competition was held first at match point A. The white man who defeated Mario yesterday also entered the third round and defeated his opponent in the third round, successfully breaking into the top three. , this result made Mario feel a lot more comfortable.

Link's match was at around 11 o'clock in the morning. When he took the stage, several boxing fans raised posters and shouted, "Link must win," which attracted the attention of many spectators.

Link laughed and waved his fist at the few fans, who shouted even louder.

The cameras at the scene also focused on him and his boxing fans in time. Link believed that as long as he continued to win, he would get more media attention and support from more boxing fans.

His opponent in the semifinals was a hairy-chested Irishman, a technical boxer who was good at defense.

Against a technical boxer, if you want to win the match quickly, you must either have better skills than the opponent, or be strong enough and fast enough. If you don't have these three things, it will be difficult to fight.

Link is strong enough, fast enough, and equally skilled. It is relatively easy to deal with this type of boxer, just use heavy punches to open up the opponent's defense.

In this round, he knocked out his opponent three times in just 1 minute and 48 seconds and successfully advanced to the finals.

His opponent in the final was a black boxer named John Stevens.

John Stevens is 20 years old this year. He is the super middleweight champion of the Florida Division of the U.S. U-19 National Championship Boxing Competition last year. He is ranked 18th among amateur super middleweight boxers in the country. He has a record of 23 wins and 20 wins in amateur competitions. With a loss of 1 and a tie, he is also one of the Florida district champion seeds of this Golden Gloves Championship.

From the data point of view, he is a difficult opponent. It is relatively difficult to get a KO from him.

"Link, John Stevens is powerful, has heavy fists, has rich experience in competitions, and his overall strength is no worse than yours. When you fight him, don't deliberately pursue a KO rate. Get enough points first. Winning the game is the most important thing."

Coach West said as he put down his notebook.

"I understand! I will be careful."

Link hit the protective gear on his head with his fist and walked quickly onto the ring.