Teuila Matautia vs. Prayuth Sakda - Hammer and Tongs

With each inch of her rise, Teuila was moving heaven and earth. Even as darkness began to creep in around her eyes, pure drive and muscle memory guided her to the apex even as the hold had her at the cusp of dead on her feet. The fall was the easy part, giving in to her weakening knees and tiredness to a degree, hanging on enough to throw the last bit of gas into sending them to the mat. The crowd was rolling thunder, a low rumble that grew into an explosive boom as both wrestlers hit the mat with similar force.

As much of a triumph as the hail mary had been, the damage had already been done. While Prayuth flopped to the side, Teuila was left on her face taking in ragged desperate gasps of air. Her fingers felt numb, mind wozy, and no amount of air was helping at first. She curled her fingers into a fist, giving her palm a tight squeeze to test her strength, finding her hands still shaky. With a dull thump, she pressed her knuckles to the canvas, pushing off to lift her head from the mat, giving her some room to shake it out, and blink the speckled dots from her vision.

Her droopy gaze settled on Prayuth and her first attempt to bark at him was met with only a brief coughing fit. With another low growl, she tried her best to compose herself, slowly gathering up to one knee. It was here she finally paused, draping an arm over the top of her knee, to rest a moment. It seemed she was human after all.

As Prayuth laid on his back, squirming around and groaning and hating life, he came to one, inescapable conclusion.

This woman was a freak of nature.

Seriously, the strength she had going in that body of her was insane. He was suffering under the effects of her slam, taking the damage firsthand, and he was still having trouble processing it. It seemed like a crazy thing for a man twice her size, but Teuila had pulled it off, and now, and now...

Nothing.

He looked her way and saw that, for all the toughness, even she had some limits, and it looked like he’d pushed them hard. She was far from done, but he wasn’t the only one who needed some time to recoup. She was wobbly, slow, open, and it was a chance he couldn’t afford to miss. Not if he wanted to avoid her hammering him again.

Prayuth rolled towards her, flopping over on his hands and knees, and started to push his way up. It was slow going all the way, and she would be up before he was, no question - unless he had a little surprise for her, which he did. Instead of just rising up, he lashed out about halfway up, throwing out a backfist towards her face in an attempt to catch her off guard.

Hunched over on one knee, there was an ever-present aura of danger around her still. Stoic even in weakness, she appeared watchful and monstrous like a gargoyle leaning over the roof of a great cathedral, ready to come alive at any moment. The sheen of sweat on her brow and the heavy sounds of her breathing were the only real signs she was showing cracks to her stony exterior. Her eyes had fixed themself on Prayuth, just as angry with him as with herself for almost being choked out. She was getting sloppy this match, slugging things out with the star-studded striker rather than wrestling a real match where her advantage lay… perhaps she was too stubborn to admit that having such an advantage would help or even be needed. There was no doubt she had underestimated her opponent a fair bit, but it seemed as though she might have just brought more of a fight out of him than even he knew he had tonight.

As he rolled closer, she leaned in, clamping down one of her palms on the back of his neck. She wanted to keep him on a leash, just in case. Her biggest worry was he would try to pull some springy knee to the face nonsense while they were both low on the mat. This would keep him grounded as she flexed her impressive strength to keep him from rising without fighting against hard resistance. Just as she had started to push up off her knees, using Prayuth as something of a crutch, his weight shifted under her.

The backfist caught her eye, trying to lean away but still getting clips enough for the crack of knuckle across her jawline to ring out into the arena. She dropped back onto the mat with a bounce before settling onto the canvas. Teuila swore softly in a mutter, shaky fingers gingerly feeling at the numb spot she had just taken the hit, trying to see if anything was dislodged while her tongue searched for missing teeth. Everything seemed intact… that was good. "You're like a damn cockroach…" she groaned with obvious frustration.

His demo reel.

That was where Prayuth had done this move before. It hadn't occurred to him before he busted it out, but it was one of the moves he used back when he was still fresh and trying to show off his skills to the world.  Kind of weird that his brain went back there, of all places, but then again, he’d been feeling nostalgic for the past few minutes, now. His brain kept wanting to take a trip back to the olden days, when things were raw, before the press tours and the jetsetting. He was glad he’d made it, this was the life he’d worked for, but sometimes, sometimes...

His mind recentered after he landed that punch, getting some solid feedback all the way down his arm. You knew when something hit well, you could sense the impact, and Prayuth knew he’d clipped her well before he even saw her fall. Sure enough, she crashed hard to the mat and laid there, wide open, the best target he could have ever asked for.

Now? Now, he had to do something with it.

”And I still dropped you flat, so what’s that say about you, huh?” Not the best comeback, but it was what came to mind off the top of his head, and he followed it up with action. Prayuth leaped high, sprung clear off the floor, tucked his legs in tight, and tried to come down on Teuila’s stomach with his knee, looking to drive it straight through that iron core of hers.