A Gale Storm Over Ireland: Moira Kilgannon vs. Karen Gale (D)

[ScylliasExoter]

Moira had Karen hoisted up for her finisher, but the Maori woman wasn’t going to go down without a fight. She launched a flurry of punches into Moira’s face. And Karen knew how to throw punches. Moira’s face was in pain and she reflexively recoiled from the punches. Instead of slamming Karen down, Moira yeeted Karen off off of her, thus sparing her from the powerbomb. Moira clutched her face and shook her head, trying to recover.

[Underdoggo]

Karen was clenching her teeth as she slammed fist after fist down into Moira's skull, each blow eliciting a grunt of pain from the Irishwoman. In reply, though, Moira simply threw her: Karen found herself gasping in alarm as she went flying backwards, before slamming into the mat, back-first. Groaning, Karen arched up and rolled onto her side, not realizing that, just across from her, Moira was in a pretty bad state as well.

[ScylliasExoter]

Moira had fallen to her knees after throwing Karen off of her. She shook her head and pushed herself to her feet. The Irishwoman stumbled on her feet before collecting herself. She looked across at Karen, raised her fists, and said, “Oi! I dedn't 'ear no bell, wench.” Moira was in full bar fight mode at this point, and stumbled around as such. She then began laying into Karen with punches.

[Underdoggo]

Karen was breathing harder as she pushed herself up tonto her knees; ahead of her, the dazed looking Moira was stumbling towards her, swaying as though drunk. Hah. Drunken Irishwoman, Karen thought, even though she was quite dazed herself as she got to her feet. She was about to get even more dazed, however, as Moira quickly closed the distance between them: before Karen could even make any kind of defence, Moira cannoned a left hook into her head, then a right, each blow snapping her head from side to side.

Dazed and swaying unsteadily, Karen backed away, lights exploding across her vision. But she did not fall. With a wordless scream she hurled herself back into Moira, grabbing for the woman's hair with one hand while trying to send repeated punches into her face with the other. What had started out as a proper prostyle wrestling match was now devolving into a brutal, fist-swinging brawl.

[ScylliasExoter]

Moira couldn’t form words anymore. Just grunts, growls, and battle cries as her fist slammed into Karen’s face. She cried out in pain when Karen grabbed her hair and hit her with a flurry of punches. Moira, operating on pure adrenaline, grabbed Karen’s hair in turn and answered the Maori woman’s punches. The two went back and forth and the crowd was enraptured by the struggle to see which woman would give first.

[Underdoggo]

Karen grunted, snarled and swore each time Moira's face collided with her face, sweat spraying out with each blow. Colours burst behind her eyes, and her face was starting to feel like a slab of pulverized meat with each blow, but sure kept standing, and continued to ram her own clenched fist into Moira's own face, again and again. Through the daze of each concussive blow, Karen realized Moira was neither stopping nor slowing, no many how many blows she rained into her. What the hell is it going to take to drop her? she thought.

She realized that she had to break this stalemate, or she was going to lose to the seemingly invincible Irishwoman. And so, as she sensed another blow coming from Moira, Karen would try to duck low, she would instead use her grip on Moira's hair to wrench her head down, tucking it under her arm and forcing Moira to bend low. At the same time, she would lean against Moira's back, trying to use her free arm to hook Moira's thigh. If this all worked, she would grit her teeth and lift, hoisting Moira upright, looking like she was going for a muscle buster!

Nothing could be further from the truth, though: wobbling and dizzy, Karen would nonetheless try to hoist Moira up onto her shoulders, pulling down on her chin and thigh, screaming in rage and exertion as she tried to stretch her powerful foe in her signature torture rack!

[ScylliasExoter]

Moira was giving it all she had with her punches. The ref had given up trying to get them to stop punching and allowed it. It seemed like Karen was simply impervious to bludgeoning damage as the two women continuously wailed on each other. Moira felt like she was at the end of her rope. Karen had to be there as well. Unfortunately for her, Karen had the presence of mind to change tactics.

The Maori woman grabbed Moira by the hair and forced her to bend over. She then hoisted Moira up over her shoulders in a torture rack. Moira began screaming in pain. The damage done to her back from Karen’s prior bearhug came into play big here as Karen’s muscular shoulders dug into Moira’s back. Moira gritted her teeth and attempted to weather the storm, but her back was being bent and stretched too much in Karen’s powerful grip. With tears of pain in her eyes, Moira tapped Karen’s shoulder, signaling her submission.

[Underdoggo]

It was taking a lot of effort on Karen's part to stand up straight with Moira draped across her shoulders; even as she stretched away at the Irish girl's back, she was still feeling dizzy from all of those repeated blows to her head, and her back and abs burned from all the moves Moira had thrown at her throughout the match. It was taking all of her endurance to maintain the hold, but maintain it she did, screaming in defianceas she tried to wrench a submission from Moira.

And then, finally, she felt Moira tap on her shoulder.

With a gasp of relief, Karen softened her grip, and then tumbled down onto her butt. She then released the hold, allowing Moira to tumble to the mat from a safe distance, before collapsing backwards herself, her head coming to rest against her fallen opponent as she stared up at the arena lights. Her entire body was soaked with sweat after this gruelling bout, and she didn't even have the energy to stand any more. And yet, all the same, after everything she and Moira had thrown at each other, she had come out the winner.

Admittedly, she felt a bit too exhausted to feel exhilarated about her win right now, even as her name was announced and her theme music began to play. Breathing hard, she gently nudged against Moira with her elbow. "Hey...you alive down there...Killgannon?"

[ScylliasExoter]

Any disappointment Moira felt in herself for submitting to Karen was outweighed by the sweet relief of Karen letting go of the torture rack. That wasn’t the end of the pain, though. Moira hurt all over. She tumbled down onto the ground and lay starfished in the ring. Karen’s head rested against her stomach and the two women laid there gasping for breath. Moira barely heard the bell or the ring announcer, her mind was taking stock of all the places her body was in pain. She was brought back to reality by Karen nudging her and asking if she was alive. Moira tapped her shoulder back and replied, ”Aye, I live. Though I wish I didn’t right now,” she let out a painful laugh.

[Underdoggo]

More so than any elation Karen felt at winning right now, Karen felt relief that Moira was actually alright. The last thing she would have wanted would have been to permanently injure an opponent, especially in one of her first matches here in LAW. With a deep breath, Karen willed herself to roll over onto her knees. She was still feeling dizzy from all of those punches to the head, and her movements were slow and sluggish. Her face felt sore and swollen, and she was sure that Moira's fists had left more than a few unpleasant bruises behind.

All the same, Karen got to her feet, and extended a hand to help Moira up to hers. "Probably nothing...a long nap...or plenty of booze won't fix," she managed to breathe with a smile. The crowd burst into applause at the display of good sportswomanship between the two wrestlers as Karen show there was no hard feelings.