Between Rounds

A working fight arena in Mexico City between rounds, hot overhead ring light and a black crowd beyond it, a welterweight sitting on the stool with his right eye already closing while his trainer works in front of him with a swab and an enswell. Sweat and vaseline, ropes in the foreground, a cutman's hands entering frame from the left. The fighter looks past him and says, "No veo nada de este lado." The trainer does not stop working, takes the fighter's jaw in one hand to line his eyes up, and answers, "Entonces no lo dejes llegar a ese lado." The ten-second warning sounds and the stool goes out from under him. Handheld at the fighter's eye height inside the ropes, one slow push to a two-shot as the trainer takes his jaw, no cuts. Anamorphic, hard specular highlights on wet skin, deep falloff into the crowd, heavy grain. Clean lip-synced Mexican Spanish, a corner crowd, a bucket, tape being torn, the ten-second whistle, gloves touched together. No score.