He awoke each morning and prayed.

But the Burpee God was unforgiving, he demanded the same price each day. Ronnie Wilkins stepped outside the room he shared with his wife and two sons and for approximately three minutes he dove into the front leaning rest, performed a push-up, and launched himself back to his feet. Fifty repetitions later and he rewarded himself with a cup of coffee to finish shaking the cobwebs.

“The call” as he thought of it, had occurred nearly two weeks ago, a chance at the big time…a chance to save his family. For the first time in nine months he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol for consecutive nights, and now here he was.

Finishing a cup of coffee, he laced up a pair of running shoes so old and so cheap that the soles were already surrendering to the pavement, leaving a thin layer of rubber between his feet and the scorching asphalt. He exited the duplex and headed further east from his tiny abode, seeking the hills that would further challenge him.

It was amazing how quickly it had come back (and it saddened Ronnie the way he had let it go so easily) but five miles flew by and before he knew it he was back at his front door, staring at his wife’s shitty Kia sedan and his ten year old F-150. He vowed these hunks of shit would be the first things gone once he’d finally made some money, and now he had an actual opportunity to make that happen. Too poor to afford a keypad, Ron rolled up his garage door and began to get to serious business.

Craigslist had been good to him and his one-car garage was covered in foam padding, with a stack of weights that almost reached half a ton in the corner.

Today was a power day.

Thruster after thruster, and clean after clean, Ron grunted, sweated, and gave himself every reason he could to quit right then and there…but he never did.

Instead he did what needed to be done, and when his quads screamed and pleaded for mercy he loaded up four plates on each side of a barbell and got to deadlifting.

Two minutes of hell later and he was done.

It shocked him when he realized how little he focused on his upcoming opponents when he began to drink a protein shake and stretch his abused and dominated muscles.

His focus lay right here…

This family.

This tiny fucking condo that shared a wall with another miserable family.

The piece of shit vehicles, that barely started when the desert winter rolled in.

The things he couldn’t give his kids, the same things he didn’t have as a child.

But that was all over now. February 23rd offered him a chance to break the cycle.

Win and he had a big, fat payday waiting for him. Lose…well fuck that, it wasn’t an option anyway.

His Agent had negotiated a pretty sweet deal for him, provided he won this first match.

He could start to make changes, start to fix things for his family. The Border Patrol had paid him well, that was for sure…but this was his chance to change his family tree for good.

And those two slackjawed idiots with the ten year old puns for a name were not going to change that.

Ronnie Wilkins dropped down and prayed to the Burpee God another fifty times before he opened the door to his pathetic condo from the garage and found his family.

His wife glued to her laptop with a baby attached to her boob.

His son enthralled with Spongebob.

And he, thinking only of the things that were to occur in one week. Determined to make his mark on the XWF.