The Subterfuge - Part XVIII

We’re just moments away from the opening bell pitting East versus West. In the red corner, the newcomer on the championship boxing scene, standing 6’5”, and weighing in at 261 lbs is the imposing cyber-trained boxer from the Soviet Union, Ivan Drago! And in the blue corner, the heavy weight champion of the world, hailing from Chicago, Illinois, standing 6’1”, and weighing in at 235 lbs, The Southside Slugger, Clubber Lang!!!

Confused? Unsure about what is to take place and whether this scene is reality or fantasy? Perhaps it has elements of both. And it certainly has elements of the unknown (for you). But soon enough such will not be the case. For soon you will know the answer to the question: what if Sylvester Stallone had not created and starred as the Rocky character in the movies Rocky III and Rocky IV and thus created the completely implausible scenarios in which Rocky Balboa defeated Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago?

Several weeks ago…

While taking a hiatus from boxing for the time being, Clubber Lang was doing what he ordinarily does when not training for a fight, moonlighting as a soldier of fortune in the Los Angeles underground. For those who had a problem for which no one else could help, and if they could find them, Clubber Lang was part of a team that was for hire. But on this day, the team was gathered around the television watching what was sure to be an epic fight between Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago. The team, perhaps out of a deep feeling of patriotism, hated the Soviets and all Communists and so was firmly in the corner of Creed.

But Apollo was not the first choice to battle Drago. The Soviets had sought out the champion of the world, Clubber Lang, but could not find him. Not being able to land Lang, and rather than going with a fight with Rocky Balboa, the Paper Champion, Drago’s camp arranged to fight Apollo Creed, the Master of Disaster and the Count of Monte Fisto. It was not entirely clear why Creed had Balboa in his corner. Many speculated that it was because Balboa was annoyed with constantly having to deal with his whiny wife’s complaints about how her first husband used to beat her and how her brother had had him killed and all kinds of silly stuff that Balboa was never able to completely verify. It was theorized that Balboa finally got sick of it and just needed to get out of the house for a while.

As the Creed-Drago fight was soon to begin, and as Clubber Lang and his team kicked back to watch, all of a sudden the team’s pilot stood up and started screaming hysterically and pointing at the television. When the rest of the team turned to look, they simply saw that the camera was focused on Drago as he was preparing for the opening bell. But it soon became clear that the rest of the team would not be able to ignore the pilot forever, and so they turned the volume all the way down on the television and listened.

What the pilot said largely made no sense, but they could make out the words power, grey, skull, power again, and the pilot kept insisting that Drago had a sword. And the pilot also stated that Drago had spoken all of this in Russian. After clearly giving too much attention to this madness, the rest of the team finally came to their own senses and did the right thing; they gagged and tied up the pilot and focused on the fight.

Soon after the fight began, the team could see that something was going wrong. Creed was getting pummeled by Drago. And then in the second round, Drago knocked Creed down and out forever. Clubber Lang jumped out of his seat and yelled, “Nooooo! It should have been me that beat that has-been Creed!”

To be continued…

Addendum: After watching the rest of the coverage on television where it was confirmed that Creed was dead, the team got around to untying the pilot. As soon as he was no longer gagged, the pilot blurted out, “See, I told you! He took out his sword and pointed it at Apollo and a ray beam shot out at him and Apollo turned into a ferocious green tiger with armor and sharp teeth. Then he, man, he hit him with the sword and Apollo the green tiger went to sleep.” Clubber Lang then punched the pilot.