DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
UCC (UMMA) Managers Forum
HTML https://umma.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Backstage Stories
*****************************************************
#Post#: 1014--------------------------------------------------
The Friendship Test - Chapter 12 - Two Steps Back
By: RampageSports Date: January 19, 2015, 10:00 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The Friendship Test - Chapter 12 - Two Steps Back
What Saturday brought was a lot of pain and misery for Sophia.
Danni tried to be as thorough as possible, but she could feel
time slipping away. So, when it came down to it, she wasn't
afraid to knock Sophia on her ass if she thought it would speed
things along. And that happened a lot in those first few
sessions.
To her credit, Sophia had come in ready to listen and learn.
She, too, seemed to hear the clock ticking, and she wasn't going
to let pride stand in the way of doing what had to be done.
It was early November... just under a month since Sophia had
first approached Danni at the Lingerie Invitational event. The
two of them, along with Sophia's friend and teammate Briana
Evigan, had been getting together whenever they could.
Evenings, weekends... Danni got over to the Den as often as
possible.
They had done some planning... developing new strategies for
getting the members of Dragon's Den to come together as a team.
But, above all, they had been training. Sophia's record in the
cage was far from stellar, and so it was decided that the
turn-around at the Den would start with her.
Danni took the patient approach... bringing her friend along a
step at a time. But, it was taking too long. Sophia couldn't
seem to keep her focus, no matter how hard she tried. Every
misstep in the practice cage seemed to add to her pile of
worries, and those worries quickly led to distraction. It was
starting to look like the whole thing might be a failure before
it even had a chance to succeed.
Surprisingly, it was Briana that turned out to be the key to
getting Sophs on track. Where Sophia lacked the confidence she
needed, Briana had it to spare. She may have been young and
inexperienced, but she didn't seem to think about that much.
She took her losses in stride, and she learned from her
mistakes. She didn't seem to have a doubt in her mind that she
was going to succeed, and Danni liked her immediately.
Turned out Briana had no trouble figuring out what was what,
either. She had never questioned why they were putting all the
emphasis on getting Sophia going. She knew the trouble the Den
was in, and she had jumped in with both feet to help her friend
become the leader the stable needed.
Danni quickly realized that the younger fighter was also the
quicker study of the two Dragon teammates. As Danni tried to
teach Sophia new techniques, it was consistently Briana who
picked them up first. On a number of occasions, Briana had
actually stepped into the cage with Danni to help her
demonstrate.
Sophia, meanwhile, seemed to be coming unglued.
Things had come to a head about a week ago. It was early on a
Saturday evening, and the women had been practicing for hours.
As usual, the session had started out fine, but it had slowly
spiraled into nothing more than wasted time. Every mistake she
made would cause Sophia's frustration to increase, and that
would lead to more mistakes. That, of course, led to more
frustration. And Sophia wasn't the only one losing her cool.
With nothing else seeming to go right, Danni decided to move on
to clinch techniques... an area Sophs had already had some
success with. But, it quickly became apparent that Sophia was
already too busy wallowing in her own worry. Her positioning
was terrible, and she made no effort to mount any kind of
offense. Danni felt like she was working with a training dummy.
She tried to hold back... going about half speed to see if
Sophia could work herself into the right frame of mind. Still
nothing. A half-hearted knee strike from Danni landed cleanly.
Sophia should have been able to defend the move in her sleep.
Danni reset and threw another knee. Again, it landed untouched.
That's when Danni lost it.
She angrily pushed Sophia away. The Dragon fighter stumbled
clumsily and crashed into the fence.
And then, Sophia quit.
She said nothing at all. She just slid down the fence and
collapsed in a miserable heap. Danni wanted to scream at her,
but bit her tongue and turned away. She didn't know what good
screaming would do, and, with the next DEF event only days away,
she worried that getting angry with Sophia would only set her
back further. She calmed herself and decided to try again to
encourage her friend. That's when she heard the cage door open
and turned to see Briana marching straight for her fallen
leader.
When she reached her defeated friend, Briana dropped to one knee
to engage in an intense stare-down with Sophia at eye level.
Sophia could barely maintain eye contact. "Yeah," Bri huffed, "I
wouldn't be able to look at me either."
Briana realised this was going to take a minute, and dropped
from her knee to a seated position in front of Sophia. "Look,
it's not your ability and we all know it. Which means, it's your
attitude. Your attitude determines your focus, and that's f*ck
knows where. It sure isn't here in the cage with Danni." Sophia
continued to sulk, but Bri wasn't done. "If you can't look at me
at least look at her. She's sticking her neck out for you and
all you can do is sit there and sulk. Well f*ck that. I don't
care if you fail, but you at least owe it to her to have the
right attitude, and try."
Sophia looked up at Danni who was standing behind Briana in the
middle of the cage. She looked more patient than warranted, and
Sophia knew it. She suddenly felt awful. Her glance shifted to
Briana, who was looking far less patient. "It's not working,"
Sophia moped.
"Not with that attitude," Briana said, not relenting on her
stare-down. "You dragged Danni into this and me; you think we're
going to let you p*ss this away? If you quit, someone else will
take your spot. Someone else will have to lead. You're
expendable. But, not me nor Danni want it to be anyone other
than you. So make it you. That's all you gotta do. And for f*ck
sake, LET Danni help you."
Briana could see Sophia's expression shift as Bri's words
started to formulate. Briana smirked. "You mope like that again
and I'll beat the snot out of you myself."
Sophia met her eye to eye this time, and smiled. "If you think
you can."
Satisfied with that response, Briana looked over her shoulder at
Danni. "She's all yours, Champ."
A small smile played across Danni's lips as she watched Briana
go.
She turned her attention back to Sophia, locking eyes with her
friend as she stepped forward and extended her hand.
"Quite a support team you have there," she said as she pulled
Sophia to her feet.
Sophia looked toward Briana and nodded silently.
"Let's not let her down, OK?" Danni said.
Sophia nodded again. Danni gave her shoulder a friendly bump
and said, "Let's get back to work."
Danni had to give Bri her due. She had been willing to get
right in Sophia's face, and she had pushed all the right buttons
in doing so. Sophia came back like a woman possessed. She
fought harder, and simply let her worries go. She seemed to
decide that, if her tenure as stable leader was going to end in
disaster, then that's the way it was going to be. Worrying
herself over it was only going to assure such an outcome.
So, she focused on her training. Each day, she got better.
But, it was her attitude that made the difference. When she
failed, she got up and got right back to it. She was a
different person by the time the End of an Era event rolled
around, and her confidence was high.
Still... Danni worried that it might be too little, too late.
And the results that night in Las Vegas proved her fears to be
well-founded.
While Danni had mounted yet another successful defense of her
welterweight title, Sophia had found nothing but more misery as
she remained winless in her third try against rival, Elodie
Frege. In fact, it was easily Sophia's worst performance of
the rivalry. Frege had dominated while Sophs looked hopelessly
lost. She fought scared, and Elodie had wasted no time making
her pay for it. It took less than two minutes for the ref to
step in and stop the fight, saving an already beaten Sophia from
further damage and humiliation.
Danni had tried to talk to her friend afterward, but Sophia had
dressed and left the arena without talking to a soul. Instead,
she found Briana, who looked as depressed as Danni felt.
"What do we do now?" Briana asked.
Danni thought a moment before she gave her answer.
"We find ourselves a second opinion," she said with a sigh.
The problem was that the opinion she wanted could only be found
at RSI.
*****************************************************