Gyun slid in the mouthguard, as he entered the caged octagon, he had to admit it was a tad exhilarating with the bright light shining down on him.
He looked across the cage at Haneul who had a nasty look on his face as he talked with Barbosa, he stripped off his shirt exposing a muscular upper body, but Gyun opted to keep his on.
Though they both had striking shin guards, they wore neither shinguard nor headgear.
'What is it with so many of these guys eager to take off their shirts?'
Gyun heard a lot of the cheers from the other students who were allowed to crowd around the octagon, Juwon was notably loud as he stood ringside behind Gyun.
"How come you never told me that you knocked out a professional fighter?"
Gyun shrugged, "It wasn't all that relevant"
Juwon pursed his lips in anger, "Well watch out, I don't know what you did to a guy like Haneul but he seems to have something against you."
Looking from Haneul's face to Juwon, Gyun answered sarcastically "What?! Really?"
Scoffing at Gyun's nonchalance, "Don't get hurt alright?"
"Stop bitching, it's just a friendly spar"
"Yeah right"
Though Gyun said that he was sure that Haneul had no intentions of keeping things friendly at all.
The two of them met in the center, bouncing lightly on his feet, his feet slightly wider than shoulder width.
As he approached and brought his lead hand up and open, for a glove touch, as a sign of respect.
Haneul adopted a more boxing-heavy stance with his hands up guarding his face,
Gyun adopted a typical taekwondo stance that he'd seen from Hajun, meanwhile, Haneul also brought his hand up for a glove touch.
As they tapped gloves, Haneul spun bringing up one leg and pivoting on the other as he executed a spinning heel kick.
Though a bit sloppy was much more powerful than what should be thrown in a spar from his rear leg aimed at the side of Gyun's body.
Noticing the movement in the hips and Haneuls glance as they touched gloves, Gyun had predicted this.
He slid back, giving a quick and light sidekick to Hanuel's body who tried to close the distance after missing the kick.
Putting some distance between the two as he circled to the left of Haneul, who followed Gyun just out of his range.
There were boos from the students and even the fighters who were acting as guides, the glove touch was a sign of respect before engaging in a match of any sort whether a professional match or a spar. To disrespect that by throwing a strike as you feint a glove touch was seen as extremely disrespectful.
'He seems to have overall skill than Sungmin but he has a cooler head, honestly, it's a miracle that Sungmin was a silver medalist. Even if it was almost 12 years ago, this guy has the patience that Sungmin lacked, but he's still not much of a threat. But I should keep him at a distance, there's no way he's a striker with a sloppy kick like that, Sungmin had much better form.'
Nonetheless, Haneul stalked Gyun trying to cut off the cage on him and corner him against the cage.
Gyun bounced lightly on his feet, Haneul blitzed forward with a flurry of wild and hard punches as he closed the distance.
Stepping to the side as he ducked under the wild strikes aimed at his head, getting slightly grazed, and moving to Haneul's side he gave a quick jab landing on the side of Haneul's face.
As he continued to keep his distance backing up and leaning back to narrowly avoid a swift follow-up roundhouse kick.
Gyun retaliated with a quick roundhouse to the body, which Haneul partially blocked but still caused some damage.
Haneul paused, for a moment to catch his breath, seeing a gap Gyun blitzed forward with a fast 1-2 punch combination and raised his leg.
Haneul hastily tightened his guard, Gyun however chambered (1) his leg and pausing for a moment, trying to throw off Haneul's timing.
Before delivering a hook kick that circumvented and went around Haneul's guard and landed on the temple, Gyun pulled his kick just enough to not seriously hurt Haneul still not wanting to knock out Haneul.
Haneul backed up keeping his guard up trying to recover from the brief stun, but Gyun didn't pursue him.
Instead, he switched stance, where his lead leg was now the rear leg into a southpaw stance.
He looked to Barbosa who was acting as a sort of referee, "tell him to calm down!"
Barbosa narrowed his eyes as he looked at Gyun for a moment, before turning to Haneul.
"Hey! Calm!" Though Barbosa's Korean was rough everybody understood what he said, Haneul glanced at him, and he gave a short nod.
"Return," Barbosa said as he clapped his hands gesturing to the two and pointing to the center of the octagon.
Gyun assumed that meant they resume their spar, looking back to see Haneul start to shuffle towards him.
Haneul threw out a cursory jab which Gyun easily blocked, and despite that he threw another one which Gyun blocked again.
'He's setting something up' Gyun thought, he recognized the effort of someone trying to instill a pattern in his opponent's head, after all, he'd done it himself numerous times.
As Haneul threw out the third jab in a row, Gyun was hyper-aware of Haneul's next move, his eyes darted between his legs and shoulders trying to see what the follow-up would be.
However as Gyun blocked it, Haneul lunged forward and shot for a takedown reaching for Gyun's legs.
Flustered it took Gyun half a second to remember what he was told to do in this situation at his wrestling class.
'Sprawl!'
But it was too late, Haneul managed to grab Gyun's leg and lifted it up high as he pushed forward Gyun was dumped onto his back.
Still flustered he tried to get back up, but almost immediately Haneul followed Gyun to the ground.
Bypassing Gyun's legs and driving his shoulder into Gyun's stomach as he stepped around to Gyun's side. Bringing his legs off to the side, trying to snake an arm around Gyun's neck.
Gyun managed to get a hand in between his neck and Haneuls arm, who reached one arm around Gyun's neck to attempt an arm triangle from side control.
Haneul judged that it was a useless endeavor to pursue the choke any further, and tried to pass his leg over Gyun's chest to get into a mount position.
Compared to the years of experience in grappling that Haneul possessed, Gyun who had less than 3 hours total on the mat.
Was left with no idea what to do but his brain still recognized the danger he was in.
Haneul managed to get into a mount position, sitting on Gyun's stomach, but opted to not throw ground and pound not crossing the line of a spar anymore than he already had.
Gyun had no idea what to do to escape so he desperately scrambled trying to get out of the bad position he was already in.
What followed was 30 seconds of the most intense grappling Gyun had ever experienced, with no experience or idea how to counter anything.
Though he had no idea how to counter he knew when he was in danger of being submitted.
He was left to brute force his way out of submission attempts, as the grappling progressed Gyun gradually became more and more tired until he began making mistakes.
However in that desperate scramble to escape he made a fatal mistake, he gave up his back while trying to stand up, as he turned over using his arms to try to push himself off the ground.
Haneul lept at the opportunity, scrambling up to Gyun's back, hooking his legs around Gyun as he attempted to grab hold of his neck as Gyun stood up.
Haneul stayed on his back hooking his legs around Gyun's body, as he wrapped his arm around Gyun's neck and grabbed his other arm.
Whose hand was pressing the back of Gyun's head pushing it down into the choke, and applying more pressure to the choke, sinking in a rear naked choke.
Gyun's eyes widened as he realized his mistake, he muscled his way to standing up and tried to use one hand to pry off Haneuls arm that was around his neck.
However Haneul's grip was sunk in properly, though the grip loosened slightly, and Haneul clung to his back squeezing his choke even tighter.
Gyun desperately racked his brain for an escape, he only was taught how to initiate a rear naked choke not defend one. He could feel himself losing unconsciousness,
He heard the voice of his classmates but it sounded unintelligible to him, as the blood pounded and he could only hear his heartbeat and breathing.
He backed up to the center of the octagon, with no other choice he jumped as high as he could and leaned back slamming Haneul down on the octagon floor as he landed on his back.
Hearing Haneul's grunt as the air left his body and feeling his grip loosen, Gyun tore off Haneul's grip, rolling over.
But Haneul recovered in time, using his legs to hold on to Gyun he rolled with him clinging to his back.
Gyun, stood back up again, with Hanuel once again holding onto his back, with one arm draped across his neck, clinging on to his back, resembling a backpack.
The arm was tight but not quite a choke but still managed to pressure Gyun's breathing.
Using his raw strength and explosiveness, Gyun grabbed Haneul's arm as he ran into the octagon fence and stepped off on the fence before pushing off backward's launching the two of them up in the air.
He heard exclamations of surprise from everybody including Haneul who clung for his life on Gyun's back but ignored it as he squeezed his eyes closed bracing for impact.
Slamming both of them hard into the octagon's canvas, Hanuel's grip came loose as Gyun rolled backward with the momentum pushing off his legs and out of the choke.
As he rolled over his shoulder and Haneul, as he escaped up, stumbled backward as he struggled to catch his breath falling down on his butt before standing back up immediately.
Raucous cheers filled the arena, Gyun tried to catch his breath as he straightened his posture.
While Haneul lay on the ground with an incredulous look on his face as he rolled onto his side standing back up.
'What the fuck?! Did he just slam me off of him twice from backpack?! That's not fucking normal!'
Haneul struggled to recover the air that was knocked out of his lungs for the second time in just a few seconds, taking back his usual stance.
Gyun panted from the exertion, as he calmed his breathing, he resumed his typical taekwondo stance, bouncing lightly on his feet.
As Hanuel stepped forward, Gyun stepped back wary of the takedown
The two had no intentions of stopping their match,
But a voice interrupted their heated spar that came over the speakers,
"Wow! Very impressive! I don't think I've ever seen that in my life!"
Gyun and Haneul looked around for the voice, searching around, but Gyun noticed that Barbosa was looking at an older man who had a gentlemanly look and attire.
Noticing the microphone in his hand, Gyun recognized it was him who spoke, soon the rest of the class looked at him
"Oh hello, I guess I haven't introduced myself, I am Pan Young-il the founder of 'APEX MMA' and a former professional boxer. I'm the current CEO of the 3rd biggest MMA organization in the world, I've been involved in martial arts of all kinds for 30-plus years. And I've never seen something like that in my life"
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Authors note- Southpaw :a left-handed person, especially a boxer who leads with the right hand or a baseball pitcher.