The gang leader was frozen in place, stuck in two minds as to what to do, he didn"t want to escalate the situation and attract more attention but he felt suspicious that Tang Yan was Eschenko"s helper. Tang Yan"s move was like a fuse, as he sw.a.n.g for the 2nd thug, Estchenko also stepped forward and sw.a.n.g for one of his underlings. Snapping to attention, the gang leader shouted for a bunch of his thugs to head for Tang Yan before leading the rest towards Estchenko.
Tang Yan"s second punch knocked down the 2nd thug to the ground. The first two thugs who had came at him were covering their faces on the ground, rolling about.
Estchenko was drawn into a full on brawl as a section of the thugs surrounded him.
Although Eschenko was a boxer, his swing style was fierce like a street brawlers but surrounded by seven to eight people his loss was inevitable but it was a matter of how long he could out.
The leader was anxious and in a hurry. He felt the urge to scold the two.
With Tang Yan appearing the situation was slipping out his grasp. If he hadn"t intervened, Eschenko would have been taken down by them.
Just then as he turned to look back at Tang Yan, his mouth almost fell open.
Because although he had sent six people to surround Tang Yan, he had already managed to take down three of them, adding to the pile of two, he had already takendown earlier.
This fighting strenghth was even stronger than Eschenko"s in front!
This time he had really kicked an iron plate, two pieces at that.
Bruce Lee"s Jeet Kune Do style was made for such fights. So for Tang Yan to deal with these gangsters and rogues, it was a breeze for him.
Seeing this and sensing the commotion they were causing, the leader shouted retreat and ran.
He turned and ran so quickly he got away, but the others weren"t so lucky. Eschenko robbed of his money and card was fuming.
Originally since they besieged him, in order to protect his girlfriend, he was mainly defensive. Now seeing them turn tail and trying to run away, he gave chase and went on the offensive.
"Bam! Bam!"
Of the eight people who surrounded him, three were successively taken down by him and only five got away.
After taking them down, Estchenko still angry, kicked them again and again and wailing filled the street.
Tang Yan also came over at this time.
Seeing Tang Yan, the anger on Estchenko"s face disappeared, replaced by grat.i.tude, he followed and said: "Thank you, brother, I really appreciate it."
Although he had been struggling with the thugs, he had still seen Tang Yan take out a bunch of them.
Tang Yan nodded and walked forward.
"Thank you, thank you very much. If your free, how about we grab a meal together so we can thank you." Eschenko"s girlfriend said coming forward.
"There"s no need to be so polite, we are both boxers and here for the same reason, so it"s only right I help out where I can." Tang Yan said quickly, almost reaching his limit.
"You"re also a boxer? Wait, what"s your name? Why do you look so familiar?" Estchenko reacted.
Tang Yan"s face turned red at this time and not bothering to answer Estchenko"s question, he quickly said, "Sorry can you wait a second, I really need to use the restroom."
He finished speaking and ignoring them, he dashed into the toilet.
Estchenko was still stunned when his girlfriend blushed and said "Dear, I need to go too."
Estchenko recovered at this and nodding, he took out his phone as he waited.
After Tang Yan came out, Eschenko and his girlfriend held him to going to dinner and unable to resist their enthusiasm, he agreed. They waited for the local police to deal with the matter, and then they headed to the western restaurant next door together.
The group ate and chatted. After finding out that Tang Yan was a 63kg boxer like him, and was his opponent in the next round, Estchenko was naturally surprised but he quickly recoverd as their exchange s.h.i.+fted to discussing boxing.
Boxing was apart of the culture and one of the favorite sports in Ukraine. However, in the past World Champions.h.i.+ps, Ukraine"s performance could only be said to be unsatisfactory. But this year they had sent a strong lineup for this World Champions.h.i.+p.
The biggest feature of Ukrainian boxers was their excellent skills and tactics. Coupled with their natural explosiveness, their potential was quite great. As far as the 60kg cla.s.s was concerned, Estchenko was actually not the first pick for the team. In the National Champions.h.i.+ps before the World Champions.h.i.+ps he had lost out to Vasyl Lomachenko the previous 57kg champion of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Not only was Lomachenko"s tactical literacy outstanding, but his punching power was amazing. His popularity was comparable to that of Zou s.h.i.+ming.
However, because Lomachenko was in a later group, Tang Yan didn"t get to see his performance in the preliminary round.
.....
The two day rest period pa.s.sed by quickly. As they entered the fourth day, the compet.i.tion entered the knockout stage.
According to the rules of this year"s World Champions.h.i.+ps, the top ten of each weight cla.s.s would get an Olympic ticket.
It was precisely because of this rule that one could imagine how intense this round of knockouts would be.
The first fight was a 49kg match. Park Dchang of South Korea faced Yu Kikuchi from j.a.pan.
In terms of strength alone, South Korea"s Park Dchang was significantly stronger than j.a.pan"s Kikuchi but Kikuchi was full of perseverance and he made use of his outstanding defense. He tied with Park Dchang in the first three rounds.
This stalemate seemingly caused Park Dchang to lose his patience and as a result, in the fourth round, Kikuchi successfully scored on several of Park Dchang"s mistakes and won on points 12 to 10, breaking into the top 16. Causing an upset as he defeated Park Dchang.
The upset sounded as a wake-up call for many boxers. This champions.h.i.+p could be one step to heaven or one step to h.e.l.l, anything was possible.