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Chapter 401 - 368: The Dispute Between Importance and Triviality

Chapter 401: Chapter 368: The Dispute Between Importance and Triviality

After the fifth round, the score became 3-2, with Hua Country Team beginning to take the lead.

At this moment, the head coach of the Thailand Team looked frighteningly grim. What started off as a promising beginning had turned out this way. Not only had Siti lost, but his injuries were not minor either, raising concerns about its impact on the upcoming matches. The morale of the Thailand Team was also somewhat low.

Watching the person across rise to enter the game, the Thailand Team’s head coach said to his own players, "It’s this person coming up, their style is similar to Muay Thai. Go all out with him—you’ll definitely have no problem!"

The player about to go on nodded, "Understood."

The sixth round, light heavyweight match, Guo Dongyang of Hua Country Team vs Ji Yu of Thailand Team.

Guo Dongyang’s current overall score was A (56%). He was originally A (76%), but his score had dropped by 20% because he had moved up from middleweight to light heavyweight, gaining 15 pounds.

For Guo Dongyang, the previous weight class was the most suitable for him. Further weight gain, while enhancing his power, greatly reduced his speed and agility, ultimately reducing his overall strength.

But this was a necessity. Compared to others, Guo Dongyang, even with the weight gain, still had the strongest capability, so he was chosen for the light heavyweight class, replacing Xu Zijia, the original Yanhuang Technique light heavyweight champion.

Ji Yu, Guo Dongyang’s opponent in this match, had an overall score of S— (24%), having won both the Thai RJ light heavyweight and heavyweight titles, making him a double champion.

The match started quickly, and Guo Dongyang and Ji Yu clashed intensely.

Both Ang Fist and Muay Thai had similar styles. Guo Dongyang, being typically offensive, didn’t hesitate to exchange blows, even knowing his opponent might be stronger.

Moving to light heavyweight, the lightest fighters weigh over 160 pounds, making them less flexible and slower in their strikes than lower weight class fighters; however, their power and explosive strength were incomparable to those of lighter fighters.

Also, having more fat and muscle, their resistance to hits far surpassed that of the lower weight class fighters. As long as they weren’t hit hard on the chin or temples, they could take a lot of punishment.

Guo Dongyang and Ji Yu exchanged punches and kicks, both trying to land heavy blows on each other’s heads.

After a few exchanges, Wu Li could clearly see that Guo Dongyang was struggling to affect his opponent.

In order to maintain his agility and speed as much as possible, Guo Dongyang had not increased his weight to the upper limit of light heavyweight, which is 92kg. Weighing now at 85kg, he was 14 pounds lighter than his opponent, which meant that during their clashes, Guo Dongyang couldn’t push or strike his opponent effectively, instead, he kept being pushed back.

This was inevitable; not everyone is suitable for fighting in higher weight classes. If Guo Dongyang blindly increased his weight to match his opponent, his punching speed and movement speed might become slower than the opponent’s, that would totally overpower him, leaving no room to fight back, but at least now he could still compete.

Fortunately, his opponent’s movement speed wasn’t very fast either. Guo Dongyang had chances to adjust his retreating direction, preventing himself from being gradually forced to the edge of the ring and knocked out.

Thus, the two moved around the ring while fighting. Guo Dongyang occasionally combined punches, was pushed back, launched a few kicks, found opportunities to adjust his direction, and then clashed again with punches.

Li Tongyun had thought about having Guo Dongyang fight defensively and counterattack, but with his Ang Fist style and overall approach, it was really not suitable for defensive counterattacking. Forcing a change might lead to mistakes, so Li Tongyun could only design some tactics based on Ji Yu’s habitual moves and characteristics for Guo Dongyang.

Onstage, as Ji Yu ducked his head to avoid Guo Dongyang’s hook, he swung his right arm, throwing a hook towards Guo Dongyang’s temple.

Guo Dongyang leaned his upper body backward, dodging Ji Yu’s hook. Meanwhile, Ji Yu stepped forward half a step, swinging his left arm delivering an upper hook punch toward Guo Dongyang’s chin.

Guo Dongyang’s eyes lit up, as if he had foreseen it. He preemptively lowered his right hand to strike down, catching Ji Yu’s incoming upper hook punch, and at the same time, his left hand threw a hook.

"When the opponent ducks to avoid your hook, they’ll habitually counter with a hook. If you choose to lean back then, there’s a high chance they’ll step forward and use a hook punch—you should try using your left hook preemptively in response."

This was the tactic specifically designed by Li Tongyun for Guo Dongyang before the match, considering Ji Yu’s habitual moves. Guo Dongyang, having practiced this move—leaning back, right hand chopping down, left fist hooking—numerous times before the match, now executed it almost instinctively.

Bang!

He landed it!

Below the ring, Li Tongyun subconsciously clenched her fist, while Guo Dongyang, invigorated, swiftly seized the opportunity to launch a flurry of punches!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Ji Yu, almost instinctively, raised both fists to guard his head, continuously retreating.

The audience erupted into exclamations, starting to shout frantically.

However, after moving back a few steps, Ji Yu suddenly kicked out, pushing Guo Dongyang back.

"Ah!"

Below the ring, Wu Li sighed deeply. He had seen it very clearly when Guo Dongyang’s left hook was about to hit Ji Yu’s head, Ji Yu instinctively shrank his neck.

Such a small gesture shouldn’t be underestimated—it reduced the impact on Ji Yu’s head somewhat and shortened his dizzy time by at least 0.1 seconds. That 0.1 second allowed him to raise his arms in defense and avoid being continuously hit by Guo Dongyang to the point of a knockout.

In top-tier player matches, the battles often boil down to these details, these tiny moments of dodging, these 0.1 or even 0.05 second reactions, which could decide the outcome of the match.

While some players aren’t vastly different in physical capabilities from top-tier fighters, they often lose more than they win in the ring—all due to these details.

Guo Dongyang’s preemptively designed tactic hadn’t fully worked as Ji Yu was obviously guarded. Repeating it wouldn’t be very effective anymore.

The two began to "circle" again, Guo Dongyang retreating while striking.

His retreat actually made it difficult to gain an advantage because Ming Jin’s force relied heavily on distance; as Guo Dongyang was pushed back, he inevitably needed time to adjust, and by the time he was ready, Ji Yu had already charged again, striking from a greater distance with naturally stronger force.

An evenly matched contest should involve both sides retreating and advancing simultaneously, the distance of their strikes being nearly equal. But since Guo Dongyang couldn’t move Ji Yu, he could only fall into passivity, which is why in boxing matches, the heavier the weight class, the more important the weight is, as sometimes a few pounds can indeed decide the direction of the match.

In the following minutes, Guo Dongyang found an opportunity to use two techniques that Li Tongyun had designed for him in advance, but neither was effective. Now completely out of tricks, after all, Ji Yu was a top-notch expert, he wouldn’t leave too many flaws for his opponent to exploit.

Thus, Guo Dongyang had to tough it out. Since his force was insufficient, he would occasionally fall into a passive state of getting hit, looking extremely vulnerable.

Finally, at the ninth minute, Guo Dongyang was caught by Ji Yu with a blow to the chin, and dazed, he was struck on the temple and collapsed straight to the ground, prompting the referee to quickly step forward to stop Ji Yu.

"Round six, Thailand Team wins!"

The score on the large screen changed to 3:3, making the last match the deciding one.

Though the group matches calculated points, not wins or losses, the outcome was still crucial because if two teams tied in points, priority was given to head-to-head results to determine qualifying: for instance, if Hua Country Team and Thailand Team both had 10 points, tied for first in the group, then it depended on their head-to-head results, if Hua Country Team had previously lost to Thailand Team, then Thailand Team would qualify, and vice versa.

So between these two teams, both points and wins were critically important.

And for the Hua Country audience present, a victory in four out of seven rounds meant a win, and this being Hua Country Team’s first match of the World Cup, everyone was hoping for a Hua Country victory!

"Come on, Hua Country Team!"

The arena erupted again with deafening cheers, and the atmosphere tensed.

"I’ll go for the last match."

Li San approached Wu Li and spoke.

The seventh round, heavyweight, had three registered participants from Hua Country Team: Dong Yunfei, Chen Quan, and Li San.

Originally, Wu Li had planned to let Dong Yunfei fight in the last match if the earlier matches had gone well, leaving Li San out.

Li San had no public fight videos before, and other teams would likely have very little or even no information on him, making him Hua Country Team’s secret weapon. Wu Li wanted to keep this secret weapon hidden a bit longer, potentially bringing it out in more crucial future situations, such as in special format matches where, with Li San’s skills and the opponents’ lack of information about him, he could have a greater impact.

But with the score now tied at 3:3, hiding Li San any longer felt like a wasted opportunity.

The opponent from Thailand Team entering the ring had an overall score of S—(78%), indicating great strength, even stronger than Ji Yu, while Dong Yunfei was somewhat weaker than Guo Dongyang, and having moved up from light heavyweight to heavyweight, his strength had further declined, making his likelihood of losing quite high.

Thailand Team had three S-grade players in total, apart from Siti, the other two were heavyweights, and regrettably, Hua Country Team lacked top-tier heavyweights.

"Okay, you go," Wu Li nodded.

Then he added, "Fight light against heavy, and don’t underestimate him."

Right then, Guo Dongyang came over with a dark expression. Li San looked at Guo Dongyang and smiled, "No worries, I’m best at fighting light against heavy, right, Guo Dongyang?"

Guo Dongyang’s expression darkened even more, but he couldn’t refute.

Li San weighed only 82kg, placing him in the middleweight category, yet in his usual sparrings with Guo Dongyang, he frustrated him effortlessly.

"Time to go."

Li San finally said, then walked towards the check-in area.

When the big screen displayed Li San’s weight, the entire venue was shocked.

82kg!?

Was that the participant for the heavyweight from Hua Country Team? Was there a mistake?

According to the competition rules, to compete in a specific weight category, the participant only needed to be within the upper weight limit, with no stipulation about a lower limit.

That meant any lower weight was theoretically allowed to fight in heavyweight matches, but such cases were unlikely since in heavyweight matches, the weight was truly critical, as just demonstrated again in the encounter between Guo Dongyang and Ji Yu.

On the big screen, the weight of the player from Thailand Team was shown on the electronic scale as 120kg, the maximum for heavyweight!

The stark difference between 82kg and 120kg appeared simultaneously on the big screen, creating a particularly striking contrast.

As Li San stepped onto the platform, the noise in the venue grew louder.

Clearly, though, Hua Country Team hadn’t sent the wrong person; this was going to be an unprecedented light versus heavy contest!

PS: Delivered the third update, sorry, it’s a bit late.