A FIRST TIME MEETING: KEVIN DEREK VS. RAFAEL VEGA

Kevin’s eyes lock with Rafael’s for a split second as the cocky muscle kid does a slight crouch to prepare himself and then fires up and out with his feet.  

Reacting fast, Kevin’s experience in the ring coming into play as he recognizes a drop kick when he sees one.  In too close already to evade, instead his body springs into action the second his opponent’s feet leave the mat.

He charges forward with a clothesline across Rafael’s smooth chest before those feet are in position to land another hard blow to his body.

“BAM BABY…. GET BACK DOWN THERE!”

Rafael sees the chance for his big break to steal the lead of the match vanish before his eyes as Kevin breaks out of his stunned state and into direct action. He's midair anyway so there's not a whole lot he can do to change course now. WHAM! Kevin's forearm blasts into his chest and knocks him down to the mat.

The fall from grace is pretty wicked and Rafael bounces before coming to a rest on his back. "Agh...damn!" he groans under his breath as he starts to roll onto his side and winces as he feels his chest hurting from the clothesline and his back from the landing.

“That HAD to sting dude”

Kevin doesn’t miss a chance at getting some trash talk in as he rubs his jaw, turns and the drops down to drive a hard knee right into the center of Rafael’s back when he rolls to his side.

Letting out a wicked laugh as he pats across his opponent’s perfect pecs then uses his hand to brace Rafael body so he can get a quick knee grind in before getting back to his feet and backing away to let the younger guy get back to his feet.

“Those pecs are nice man …. I’ll give you that”

Rafael shouts out as a knee slams center into his back and makes him jerk upright straight as a board, then falling over onto his side as his hand goes to clutch at the area that was hit. His opponent laughs as he pats him patronizingly on the chest before grinding a knee into the spot. Rafael swings an arm back to defend himself but Kevin is already backing away.

Rafael takes the opportunity to quickly bring himself forward onto his knees and stand up, one arm still folded behind him as he tries to shake it off. "Yeah, thirteen thousand people agree with you" Rafael comments back as he flexes his follower count at his opponent. He jumps on the balls of his feet and swings his arms forward and backward stretching out.

Seemingly out of nowhere he springs forward and dives for Kevin's knee, trying to take him off-balance and into a takedown that would land Kevin on his back and give Rafael an opportunity to try for a full mount.

The not so humble brag gets a chuckle out of Kevin as he is starting to really like his opponent’s style not to mention his sculpted aesthetic body.

“13K … Is that all?”

Unable to resist responding as he preps his body to move back in.  

Arms coming up and looking to press in for a lockup when the Brazilian lighting bolt strikes again. Before he can block it, he snaps down to his back before he knows what happened; thinking … “holy crap that was fast!”  Kevin’s body responds after a second with a reflex action in this position by reaching up and trying to hook his right arm around Rafael’s head.  Wanting to get control of it before his opponent can take total control of the position.

Rafael feels somewhat insulted for Kevin to think less of his meticulously cultivated following. He wasn't that old, he should know how hard it was to carve a space out of the internet zeitgeist for yourself. In a flash he's taken Kevin to the ground and his hands are on Kevin's thighs, propelling himself up and over as his legs pass Kevin's hips into a full mount.

Kevin's arm swoops around and loops around the back of Rafael's head trying to drag him into a controlled position. He quickly dips his chin to his chest and rolls his neck around, trying to slip out of the grip by also reaching back with one hand to remove the arm. He slides his other knee in and tries to pin Kevin's bicep to the canvas with his weight.

"Hrghhh!" Rafael shouts as he attempts to pull the arm from behind his head and clutch it to his chest so that he could then roll himself over into a nice little armbar.

Rafael proving once again that he is quick and hard to keep still as he successfully hops over the dangerous legs of Kevin and lands in position for a mount.

“Where the head goes…. NNGHHH”

Kevin growls out as he fights for control of his crafty opponent’s head.  Finding out quickly a straight up grapple may not be where he wants to be with this dude though when things get worse for him as he looses control of the head all together.

“ARGHHH … NO WAY”

Yelling out a little concerned as his arm starts to straighten on the way to an arm bar.  Showing off his ground game in return, Kevin quickly rolls hard in against his opponent’s legs before they can stretch out to complete the extension.  Working his knees under him so he can lean in and down with his forearm searching for Rafael’s neck. “COME ON “ … working to press down and hopefully force a release.

Rafael has a little trouble securing the armbar as Kevin's quick reflexes kick in and he rolls into him before he can properly extend his legs and lock on. Kevin presses forward and tries to work his arm up through Rafael's grip and against his neck in a choke, to which Rafa defends by immediately going chin to chest. It looked like Kevin had a bit of experience on the ground as well from his quick thinking, so Rafael really needed to pull out all his stops here.

"You come on!" he grunts back as he slips one foot up and places it against the center of Kevin's chest. He tries to shove off as hard as he can to force Kevin back, even letting go of the arm in the process.

“DAMN THAT WAS CLOSE”

Kevin shakes his arm out after the near trap from Rafael and thrust release thanks to his quick thinking.  Rubbing his chest from the “help” provided by his opponent’s foot as he walks back and forth with his eyes locked on his dangerously fast adversary.  Having a new found respect for this kid but still wanting to bring him down.

“Nice try punk … let’s dance”

Trying to buy time as well as distract Rafael with the trash talk as Kevin inches in, fakes high then shoots low trying for a double leg takedown high school style to get his guy on his back.

After thrusting Kevin off of him, Rafael rolls his hands back onto the mat and lurches his legs up into a kip-up maneuver to quickly recover into a crouch and also gain some nice style points. There's definitely the sound of panties dropping from ladies all across the audience, or at least Rafael liked to think so. He then pushes back up to stand and assume a quick ready position.

"You can barely keep up, and now you want to dance with me, boomer? Psssh" he scoffs as if it were the most ridiculous idea he'd ever heard. He even straightens up out of his stance and looks out towards the crowd, gesturing with a jutted thumb back at Kevin as if to say 'get a load of this guy, he's nuts!'. For his hubris, Kevin is able to shoot in and Rafael quickly responds to his high fake and misses any tells that it might be a ruse. He gets caught in a relatively straightforward takedown that has him landed roughly on his back with a groan.