The Irish Fire Burns

Matthew hunched over his drink in the corner of O'Malley's, grateful for the soft lighting that shrouded his face. The bar's worn wooden floors and low ceiling created the perfect refuge—quiet enough to hear your thoughts, anonymous enough to escape them. Just what he needed tonight.

"Another?" The bartender's voice cut through his brooding.

Matthew nodded absent mindedly, his gaze fixed on the dark beer as it poured into the glass with a deep, inky flow. The minimal light caught the liquid as it filled his glass. The familiar aroma of good Irish beer wafted upward, momentarily transporting him back to Cork, to simpler times before his name became fodder for fight analysts and keyboard warriors.

Scripted losses. Fixed fights. Playing the heel.

The words from that damned Tapout article churned in his gut, more potent than the beers he'd been pounding one by one for the past hour. He took another sip, letting the heavy Irish beer coat his tongue with its rich, malty depth. The roasted barley and hints of coffee lingered as it settled smoothly, its weighty presence warming his chest with each swallow.

"You've earned this," he muttered to himself, tracing a finger over the fresh scar above his eye—a souvenir from his last fight with Cade Mercer. The stitches had only come out last week. The memory flashed in his mind: the roar of the crowd, the taste of blood, the desperation as he'd tried to find an answer for Mercer's relentless pressure. He hadn't found one. Not that night.

"Eighteen minutes," he whispered, "Eighteen minutes in that cage with everything I had, and these bastards think I let him win?"

His knuckles whitened around the glass. Years of fighting—from backroom brawls in Belfast to now the bright lights of New York—reduced to conspiracy theories by people who'd never stepped foot in a cage.

Through the mirror behind the bar, Matthew caught sight of two men a few stools down. One wore a knockoff SFL hoodie, the other a baseball cap turned backward. They were hunched over their phones, voices just loud enough to carry.

"Did you see that new breakdown of the Mercer-Matthew rematch?" Baseball Cap snickered, scrolling through something on his screen. "Says Matthew let Cade hit the reversal. Practically gift-wrapped the pinfall."

His companion nodded too eagerly. "Guess it was all a work, huh? No wonder he lost to Mercer twice."

Something snapped inside Matthew. The glass shattered against the bar top before he even realized he'd slammed it down. Shards scattered across the polished wood, glinting like ice in the low light. The sound cut through the drone of conversations, plunging the bar into sudden silence.

Matthew rose slowly to his full height, six-foot-two of twisted fury. His breathing came purposeful and measured—a fighter's breath, the kind that preceded violence in the cage.

"Oi! Gobshite, say that shite again." His Irish accent, already thick, slurred slightly under the weight of one too many beers, making the words harder to untangle. One thing was clear though, it wasn’t a request.

The two men froze, their earlier bravado evaporating under his stare. Baseball Cap swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing nervously.

"We—uh, we didn't know—"

"Didn't know what exactly?" Matthew took a step forward, closing the distance between them. He could feel the bartender watching carefully, hand likely hovering near the baseball bat kept under the counter. "Didn’t see me sittin’ here, is it? Or maybe ye didn’t mean to piss on every drop o’ blood I’ve spilled in that cage—every busted bone, every feckin’ thing I’ve given up just to stand in there?”

His mind flashed to the birthday parties missed, the relationships failed, the mornings spent in hospital rooms—all for the sport, all for the respect he'd earned with his own two hands.

"Look, man," the taller one stammered, hands raised in surrender, "we were just talking about the article. We don't actually know anything about—"

"That's right," Matthew cut him off, voice dangerously soft now. "Ya haven’t a feckin’ clue, lad."

The bar remained silent, spectators to a potential explosion. Matthew could feel it within himself—the temptation to demonstrate exactly what years of fighting discipline could do to an untrained mouth. One shot. That's all it would take.

But that's what they want, isn't it? The thought surfaced through his anger. The Irish hothead. The brawler who can't control himself. Just another headline for tomorrow.

With tremendous effort, Matthew unclenched his fists. He pulled out his wallet, dropped a fifty on the counter, and nodded at the bartender.

"Sorry about the glass."

With one final glare at the two men—who were practically melting into their seats—he turned and walked toward the exit. Each step felt heavy with unspent rage, with words unsaid and punches not thrown.

The cool night air hit his face as he stepped outside, a welcome contrast to the suffocating heat of his anger. He stood there for a moment, letting his breathing slow, watching his breath form clouds in the cold.

Let them talk, he thought, the resolution hardening inside him like forged steel. Let them all talk. Matthew didn't need to prove himself with bar fights and broken jaws. He'd do it where it mattered—in the cage, under the lights, with the whole world watching.

Next time he faced Cade Mercer, there would be no questions, no doubts, no whispers of scripts or predetermined outcomes.

Only respect.

Or blood.

He'd accept either.