VISION GRID SYSTEM: THE COMEBACK OF RYOMA TAKEDA

Back below, Mercer immediately tries reclaiming control with the flicker jab again, staying disciplined with distance.

Wssht!

Wssht!

Wssht! Wssht! Wssht!

Wssht! Wssht!

But once more, none of the jabs land cleanly. And little by little, the frustration starts pushing him toward more aggression.

Mercer begins layering feints into his entries now. Small shoulder twitches. Sudden level changes. Decoy hand movements.

Then he suddenly jumps in behind a hard spearing jab toward Roy’s midsection.

Roy calmly knocks it down using his left…

Pat.

Mercer instantly chains a sharp cross toward the chest. Roy lifts back his left, but the reaction is a split second late…

BUGH!

The punch hammers into his chest cleanly.

But at the exact same instant, as though the impact never even registered, Roy’s right hand explodes forward and…

Dhuack!

…snaps Mercer’s head backward violently.

“Oh my God!” one commentator shouts. “Mercer landed clean first, and Roy answered him immediately!”

“That timing is insane!” his partner says sharply. “They almost landed simultaneously, but Mercer’s the one who got knocked backward!”

The arena roars again, though the sound carries more shock than excitement now, because even as Mercer retreats back outside, Roy still doesn’t chase him. He simply remains near center, lead foot rocking gently back and forth, waiting.

And somehow, the passiveness itself starts feeling oppressive now. Everyone can see it clearly. The moment contact happens, Roy suddenly becomes terrifying.

“This is it,” Ryoma says. “This is the kind of zone I’ve been trying to help Kenta to step into.”

Kurogane keeps watching the ring. “You’re telling me he’s in the zone now?”

“There’s no mistaking it,” Ryoma replies. “He only looks calm for now. But once he settles deeper into it, that’s when the Blizzard becomes what I call the Blizzara.”

Kurogane blinks. “The hell is a Blizzara?”

“Nothing,” Ryoma says. “Just keep watching. I don’t think this fight lasts much longer now.”

***

The previous two exchanges leave Mercer even more cautious than before. He no longer dares stepping fully into Roy’s range anymore.

And with Roy remaining passive near center ring, the fight starts looking strangely one-sided for a while. Mercer keeps throwing jab after jab from long distance while Roy calmly blocks or parries nearly everything without responding.

“And right now this is completely Mercer’s pace! He’s dictating the range, dictating the activity, and Roy’s barely throwing anything back.”

“But look closely! Roy isn’t getting touched clean either. He’s just reading. Waiting.”

Toward the final minute of the round, Roy finally begins moving forward again, not aggressively, just one small advance at a time.

The moment Mercer’s jab touches his guard…

Pat.

…Roy takes a short phantom step forward.

Mercer immediately retreats to maintain distance before flicking another jab.

Wssht!

This time, Roy slips inside at the exact moment the left extends and fires a compact lead hook.

Mercer reads it well, catching the punch cleanly on his right guard.

Dug.

Roy instantly follows with a cross, and Mercer twists his lead shoulder sharply inward.

The impact slams across the shell…

Dugh!

Then Roy begins chaining compact combinations together with those sharp violent shoulder rotations.

Dug. Dug. Dugh. Dug.

Mercer settles fully into a bladed Philly Shell stance now, absorbing everything through blocks, parries, shoulder rolls, and subtle backward leans to keep his head barely outside the center line.

“Roy’s back inside again! This is exactly where he wants the fight!”

“Look at Mercer’s defense though! He’s reading almost everything, but Roy just keeps piling pressure on the shell over and over!”

Mercer tries stepping away again, but Roy follows immediately.

Little by little, Mercer finds himself trapped against the ropes. And the arena grows louder instantly.

Roy drives three compact hooks into the shell from alternating sides.

Dug. Dug. Dug.

Then suddenly, his torso swings wider toward the right.

Mercer’s eyes sharpen immediately.

“This is it.”

“The Dempsey Roll.”

The right hook crashes heavily against Mercer’s lead shoulder.

DUGH!

Roy then swings his momentum back the opposite direction and launches a heavier left hook.

BAM!!!

The impact blasts through Mercer’s guard hard enough to jolt his entire upper body backward.

But even then, Mercer’s eyes remain sharp, focused, waiting. He knows another swing should come next.

Roy’s torso begins rotating wider, his right foot coils hard against the canvas.

Mercer tightens his right glove, timing his counter.

“Come.”

“Bring it on.”

But then, he notices Roy’s left hand slightly extended forward, not a strike, but a disruption to his counter line. And instead of another hook, Roy actually rides the momentum into a heavy cross.

Mercer reacts instantly. He aborts his own cross counter, twists his lead shoulder inward, and dips his head low enough for the cross to skim across his upper back.

From there, he fires his own right hand upward, countering from below.

“Now taste this…”

But before the punch can fully snap upward, Roy fully reads the sequence of this alternative counter. He uses his left glove to intercept it, catching Mercer in surprise.

“What the…?”

And from that exact position, the same left hand snaps forward into a short compact punch that jolts Mercer’s face.

Dsh!

And a heavy right hand comes crashing down immediately after.

DHUACK!!!

A brutal chopping shot smashes directly into Mercer’s temple. His head twists violently downward.

The crowd’s roar suddenly explodes into stunned silence as Mercer crashes onto the canvas.

Then, almost a second later, Scotiabank Arena erupts into absolute chaos.

“HE DROPPED HIM! JEAN-PASCAL ROY JUST DROPPED CELEB MERCER!”

“Oh my God! What a counter sequence! Mercer thought the Dempsey Roll was coming again, and Roy completely baited him into it!”

Up in the spectator stands, Ryoma’s eyes remain locked on the ring, his gaze growing sharper and more focused.

“Just as I thought,” he says quietly. “The Dempsey Roll was never meant to break the shell. It was just a setup.”

Kurogane turns toward him immediately. “You mean… he was baiting Mercer by using that move?”

“Yes,” Ryoma replies. “And not just baiting him. He was also limiting Mercer’s counter options into a single form of counter he already prepared for.”

***

Scotiabank Arena is still erupting wildly as the replay begins playing across the massive screens hanging above the ring.

Down below, Roy waits calmly inside the neutral corner, breathing steadily, gloves resting near his chest.

Meanwhile, Mercer is still trying to pull himself upward using the ropes. One knee remains pressed against the canvas.

His jaw tightens, a flicker of irritation cutting through the fatigue as he realizes he’s been drawn into Roy’s setup.

The referee’s count echoes through the arena.

“…Five!”

“…Six!”

Mercer manages lifting his upper body slightly higher. His anger’s building up, but sadly, his legs still refuse to stabilize beneath him.

“…Seven!”

The crowd grows louder, thousands of voices blending together into one chaotic roar.

Mercer’s expression slowly changes. The willingness to stand disappears from his face.

The referee sees it, steps forward, and eventually waves both arms across his chest.

“IT’S OVER! Jean-pascal ‘the blizzard’ Roy has stopped celeb mercer.”

“What a performance! Cold, disciplined, calculated pressure from the very beginning, and then that unbelievable setup for the finish!”

The arena’s roar slowly turns into thunderous applause as the giant screen begins replaying the entire sequence again, from the moment Roy traps Mercer against the ropes with compact hooks and suffocating pressure.

Roy begins building the Dempsey rhythm little by little, first swinging heavily from the right, then from the left. But it doesn’t last long.

“See how short the sequence actually is?” Ryoma says. “He never lets the pendulum grow too wild. If the momentum gets too large, controlling the transition becomes difficult. So he only uses enough of the Dempsey Roll to establish the pattern.”

On the replay, Roy’s torso swings toward the right again. But this time, instead of continuing the pendulum into another hook, his left hand subtly extends forward while his body shifts into the heavy cross.

“There,” Ryoma says again. “That’s the important part. He already ended the real Dempsey rhythm before it’s getting wilder. “

The replay then shows Mercer slipping the cross cleanly by twisting his shoulder inward and dipping low beneath it.

“And that counter posture…” Ryoma murmurs. “That’s the second form of a Philly Shell counter. Also the last counter Mercer could realistically throw from that angle.”

Kurogane’s eyes widen slightly. “…Which means…”

Ryoma nods slowly. “Yes. Roy guided him there intentionally. First he shut down the straight cross counter by extending his lead hand before committing to his own cross. Mercer slipped it by dipping his head, shifting into position for the second counter form. But by then, whatever came next was already inside Roy’s expectation, because he had engineered the exchange from the start.”

The replay slows further. Mercer’s right hand rises sharply from below. And before the punch can fully extend, Roy’s left glove catches the arm cleanly.

“You see that?!” one commentator shouts. “He completely read the counter beforehand!”

“And look at Roy’s left hand!” the second commentator adds. “He was already prepared for the exact punch Mercer wanted to throw!”

“Then comes the setup punch…!”

“And THAT brutal chopping right hand right after!”

“That is an unbelievable sequence from Jean-Pascal Roy!”

Kurogane stares at the replay for a moment longer, his expression shifting into open disbelief. “I get the idea…” he mutters. “But to pull that off at this stage, against someone like Mercer… reading all of that in real time, in that chaos…”

“Like I said,” Ryoma replies calmly. “He’s already inside the zone. Peak reaction, peak concentration. But the dangerous part is he’s still able to think clearly, build sequences like that while he’s in it.”

Kurogane swallows hard. “So he isn’t just riding instinct?”

“No,” Ryoma says. “It’s the flow state where he’s fully in control of himself while inside the zone.”