Year: 2017-2018
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The victory over Ricardo Vargas was a paradox. It elevated Kyon's stock immeasurably—the "come-from-behind knockout" was the kind of story promoters and networks salivated over—but it left a deep, unsettled feeling in the pit of his being. The Phantom had been dragged into a brawl and had brawled his way out. He had won with heart, not with art. To the public and to Sterling Promotions, it was proof of his championship mettle. To Kyon, Thorne, and The Professor, it was a glaring red siren.
The weeks after Chicago were spent not in celebration, but in painful recovery and grim reassessment. The punch that had dropped him had given him another concussion, milder than the ones from the Olympics but still a worrying data point on a chart that was trending dangerously. His ribs were a constellation of bruises. The cut on his cheek required five stitches.
Dr. Kozlov's post-fight examination was a silent, tense affair. She studied his new brain scan, compared it to the post-Olympic one, and her lips tightened into a thin line. "The margins are shrinking, Kyon," she said, her voice devoid of its usual clinical detachment. "Each trauma, even a 'mild' one, leaves a footprint. The cumulative effect… it is not arithmetic. It is exponential. You cannot make a habit of getting hit like this."
Frank Sterling, ever the pragmatist, saw it differently. "Kid's got guts," he grunted to Thorne over the phone, which Thorne had on speaker in the gym office. Kyon listened, icing his ribs. "The public loves a warrior. That Vargas fight made him must-see TV. The numbers were great. We've got networks calling."
"He's not supposed to be a warrior," Thorne shot back, his voice tight. "He's supposed to be a phantom. Getting dropped in your second pro fight isn't a selling point; it's a goddamn warning."
"It's a selling point if he keeps getting up and knocking guys out," Sterling countered. "But I hear you. We slow it down a touch. Next opponent: a boxer. Someone who'll make him use his brain, not just his chin."
The next opponent was Silas "The Librarian" Reed, a tall, jab-happy technician from Philadelphia with a record of 18-3, 4 KOs. He was a pure points fighter, elusive, frustrating, and notoriously difficult to look good against. He didn't win knockouts; he won boring decisions. For Kyon, it was the perfect assignment: a chance to reset, to showcase his boxing IQ, to be the Phantom again.
The training camp refocused entirely on precision and patience. The Professor doubled down on defensive responsibility. "Against Reed, a missed punch is a wasted bullet. You must make every shot count. You must trap him. You cannot chase him; you must herd him."
They used complex footwork patterns, working on cutting off the ring against a mover, using feints not to draw a punch, but to draw a step, manipulating Reed's movement like a chess grandmaster. Thorne worked on perfecting Kyon's jab into a controlling, punishing weapon, and on developing a right hand that could be thrown with pinpoint accuracy from odd angles.
The fight, in early December at a casino in Connecticut, was a stylistic 180 from the Vargas war. For eight rounds, Kyon pursued a ghost. Reed was slick, smart, and entirely unwilling to engage. He flicked his jab, moved, clinched, and moved some more. The crowd booed intermittently.
But Kyon, employing his new education, remained calm. He didn't get frustrated. He used subtle pressure, cutting the ring in halves, then quarters. He'd feint a jab to the body, making Reed drop his hands, then fire a sharp right over the top. He'd trap Reed against the ropes, not with wild swings, but with a stiff jab that stopped his escape, then dig a hook to the body.
It was a cerebral, tactical duel. In the seventh round, Kyon finally timed Reed's predictable escape route—a pivot to his right after throwing a lazy jab. Kyon stepped with him and landed a perfect straight right that sent Reed's mouthpiece flying. Reed was stunned, his legs wobbly. Kyon pounced, unleashing a clinical, five-punch combination that sent Reed crumbling to the canvas. He didn't get up.
TKO, Round 7.
It was a different kind of knockout. Not a dramatic, comeback haymaker, but an execution. A problem solved with patience and technique. The boxing purists and analysts loved it. "The Phantom is learning," the headlines read. "Wilson Shows Maturity, Stops Elusive Reed."
Kyon felt a deep sense of satisfaction. This was the path. This was the craft. He had won without taking any meaningful damage. The Professor nodded his approval. Thorne allowed himself a small smile.
The victory set a pattern for the next year. Under Sterling's careful, sometimes frustratingly slow matchmaking, Kyon fought four more times in 2018. Each opponent was a carefully chosen piece of a curriculum.
Fight 4: Marco "The Anvil" Suarez. A relentless, face-first pressure fighter with a granite chin, akin to a younger, less skilled Kovalenko. The assignment: practice fighting off the back foot, using the entire ring, and landing punishing counters without getting drawn into a war. Kyon boxed beautifully for nine rounds, piling up points and busting Suarez up, before the referee stopped it in the tenth due to Suarez's facial damage. TKO, Round 10. A lesson in sustained, safe dominance against aggression.
Fight 5: Leon "The Sniper" Jackson. A tall, long-armed counter-puncher with one-punch power in his right hand. The assignment: practice being the aggressor against a dangerous counter-puncher, using feints and level changes to draw out his shots and create openings. It was a tense, tactical battle. Kyon won a wide unanimous decision, but he was caught with a few monster right hands that reminded him of the stakes. UD, 10 Rounds. A lesson in calculated risk.
Fight 6: Amir "The Prince" Kahn. A slick, fast-handed boxer with amateur pedigree, a style reminiscent of Márquez but at a lower level. The assignment: beat a pure boxer at his own game, using superior footwork and timing. In a dazzling display, Kyon made Kahn miss repeatedly and picked him apart with sharp combinations, eventually stopping him on cuts in the eighth. TKO (Cuts), Round 8. A lesson in stylistic superiority.
With each fight, Kyon's record grew (6-0, 5 KOs), his ranking climbed (he was now top 10 in two sanctioning bodies), and his purse multiplied. The Phantom brand flourished. Hayes negotiated a signature shoe deal with a major sportswear company. There was talk of a video game appearance. Kyon bought a modest, secure condo in a quiet neighborhood, his first real home. He paid off the remaining mortgage on The Last Round and funded a complete renovation: new ring, new bags, proper locker rooms. The gym was now a shrine with a thriving business, thanks to its famous resident.
But the apprenticeship was not without cost. Even in the wins where he took little damage, the training camps were wars of attrition. The sheer volume of sparring, the relentless physical and mental preparation, the weight cuts—it all wore him down. The scars accumulated. The nose was re-broken (and re-set) in the Suarez fight. His hands, despite the best wraps and gloves, ached constantly. The ghost of past concussions was a silent passenger in every training session.
He also began to feel the isolation of his chosen path. His world was the gym, the condo, the sterile hotel rooms of fight cities. He was 20 years old, a millionaire, a celebrity in his sport, and profoundly alone. Miguel was pursuing his own pro career on a different circuit. The other fighters at the gym now treated him with a deference that bordered on awe, not camaraderie. Thorne was his anchor, but theirs was a relationship built on sweat and struggle, not easy companionship. He tried dating a few times, but the conversations felt alien. How do you explain the echoes of violence in your skull, the meticulous planning of injury, to someone who lives in a normal world?
The media narrative around him solidified. He was the "thinking man's fighter," the "Olympic genius adapting to the pros." The bloody brawl with Vargas was framed as an aberration, a learning experience. The public saw the evolution. They didn't see the lonely hours spent with The Professor, dissecting film of opponents' blinking patterns. They didn't feel the paranoia that came with knowing every man you faced was studying your weaknesses with the same obsessive detail.
In the fall of 2018, Sterling called with the next step. "You're ready for a contender. A real one. This is the fight that puts you in the mandatory position."
The opponent was Dante "The Viper" Sharpe. Kyon's old amateur rival from the national quarter-finals, the defensive specialist he'd broken down years ago. Sharpe had also turned pro, compiling a record of 18-1 with a style even more refined and safety-first. He was a master of making good fighters look bad. He was ranked #3.
"This is the final exam," Thorne said when they got the news. "The Librarian was a pop quiz. Sharpe is the thesis defense. He's better than Reed in every way. He won't just run; he'll make you pay for trying to chase him. He's the ultimate test of your offensive patience."
The camp for Sharpe was the most grueling yet. It was a deep dive into the science of breaking a will without breaking a sweat. They brought in three different sparring partners who mimicked Sharpe's style. The Professor devised a strategy he called "The Incremental Siege." The idea was not to look for a knockout, but to systematically take away every one of Sharpe's tools, round by round, until he had nothing left and either quit or made a fatal mistake.
The fight was scheduled for February 2019, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas—Kyon's first headline fight on a major pay-per-view undercard. The spotlight was intensifying.
One afternoon, two months out from the fight, as Kyon was finishing a brutal session on the treadmill, Hayes arrived at the gym with a visitor: David Chen, the CEO of Apex Global. He was all smiles and sleek casual wear.
"Kyon! Looking sharp, as always. Dominating the old-school way, I see." He shook Kyon's hand, his grip firm. "I'm not here to poach you, I promise. Frank and I have an understanding. I'm here because, like everyone else, I'm a fan. And I have a proposition that could benefit everyone."
He laid it out. Apex Global was launching a new, data-driven streaming platform for combat sports. They wanted Kyon's fight with Sharpe to be one of the inaugural events. They'd offer a significant upside bonus on top of his Sterling purse. In return, they'd embed a dedicated camera crew in his camp for the final six weeks, capturing "unprecedented access" to the Phantom's preparation. They'd use advanced biometric sensors during his sparring (with his approval) to showcase his athletic data. It was the ultimate fusion of sport and technology.
"Think about it," Chen said, his eyes gleaming. "We show the world not just the fighter, but the process. The genius behind the Phantom. We make you the face of the new era of boxing."
Kyon was immediately wary. The last thing he needed before his most technical fight was more cameras, more distractions. But Hayes was practically vibrating with excitement. The money was enormous. The exposure was global.
Thorne was suspicious. "Sensors? Data? This isn't a lab experiment. It's a fight camp."
"It's the future, Marcus," Chen said smoothly. "And Kyon is the future. This isn't about changing what you do. It's about showcasing it. The Professor's techniques, your strategic sessions—it's compelling content. It elevates the sport."
A long negotiation ensued. Kyon, remembering the invasive feel of the early "Road Back" days, set hard limits. No cameras in the gym during technical sessions with The Professor. No biometrics without his explicit, case-by-case approval. Final edit approval on any camp footage. Chen, eager for the coup, agreed.
And so, the final leg of camp for the Sharpe fight became a surreal hybrid of monastic focus and reality TV. Apex's crew, led by a more subdued and respectful director, filmed his conditioning work, his media workouts, his interactions with Thorne (who grumbled but tolerated it). They captured stunning, slow-motion shots of his shadowboxing, his mitt work. They interviewed him about strategy, and Kyon, having learned the media game, gave answers that were insightful but revealed nothing.
The data they captured—his punch output in sparring, his heart rate recovery, his oxygen efficiency—was indeed impressive. Chen used it to create slick promotional segments: "The Biometrics of a Phantom."
It worked. The hype for the fight was unlike anything Kyon had experienced as a pro. It wasn't just a boxing match; it was a showcase of a new kind of athlete. The narrative was perfect: the evolved Olympic genius versus the ultimate professional spoiler.
As fight week arrived in Las Vegas, Kyon felt a new kind of pressure. It wasn't the fear of losing. It was the fear of failing to live up to the narrative, of not being the cerebral, flawless machine everyone was now expecting. The Phantom had been studied, datafied, and packaged. Now he had to perform the illusion.
He stood in his lavish hotel suite, looking down at the glittering Strip, the necklace with the Olympic rings and phantom symbol cool against his skin. The river stone was in his pocket. The apprenticeship was over. The next fight wasn't a lesson; it was a statement. He was no longer a prospect, or a contender in the making. He was a top-ranked fighter facing another elite operator. A win meant a world title shot. A loss meant starting over.
The ghost from Detroit had become a data point, a brand, and a boxer on the verge of a championship. The long, meticulous, often painful apprenticeship of violence was about to face its final, most difficult test.