The time I physically abused and humiliated a girl to win a high school wrestling match.

I was a mid wrestler in high-school. This is a true story about how I won a match under unfortunate circumstances.

Here I was, at one of the larger tournaments my school participated in. Several schools come together over the course of multiple days and match up individuals of similar weight classes (think 100lbs up to 110lbs, or 180lbs up to 200lbs, etc). The event coordinators hang up the list of bouts and everyone rushes over to check it out to maybe scope out their opponent and after a quick scan of the poster, there's my name.

DixFerLunch vs Jane

"Jane?", I say out loud. "I've got to wrestle a girl?" My teammates are grinning ear to ear.

Sure enough, one of the two girls in the gymn with 400 boys is right next to me. "Are you DixFerLunch?"

I look down, she's most of a foot shorter than me but clearly in my same weight class. She's got a pleased expression, like maybe she gets a kick out of giving anxiety attacks to highschool boys or maybe it was obvious that I was shocked and she just enjoyed that.

For a young man, this is a losing situation. At best, you pin her immediately and everyone expects that because, well, she's a girl. At worst, you lose to a girl and have to change your name and zip code so no one can ever know who you were.

Before I could even make heads or tails of what was happeneing, she says, "Wanna go spar?"

I reluctantly agree, and we make our way to a vacant practice mat. We test each other for a few minutes; push here, pull there, roll around with low intensity. Shes friendly, I'm friendly, just doing my best to navigate the position I'm now in. We talk for a bit after sparring and by the end of it, I'm more sure of myself. I'm stronger, I'm in better shape, I've got better technique. I'm 160lbs of confidence.

We part ways, the day goes on and as fate would have it, my teamate at 110lbs is matched against the only other girl in the tournament and his match is before mine. The team gathers to watch, fully expecting our stud to end it quickly, but the girl he was matched against was a KILLER. She was agile and aggressive and put him on his back in the first round. He loses the match to a pin (the worst kind of loss) and walks off the mat completely and wholly defeated.

To my surprise, there were no immediate insults from the team. It was much worse. Complete silence. Even our coach didn't know what to say. It was as if we had all just attended a funeral. He quietly walked away from us all, no more light in his eyes.

This shakes me to my core. If he could lose, I sure as Hell could too.

After just enough time to wallow in the trauma of his loss, my bout is up next. The confidence is gone, the nerves are back. We meet on the mat, her with that coy smile. We ready our position and I give her fair warning. "We aren't friends anymore". The smile fades.

The match begins and before you know it, we are entangled on the ground. I'm desperately focused on getting a pin, I turn her around a bit, force her on her back, but can't quite get the pin. Shes so flexible. I've never wrestled with anyone this flexible. But when it came to strength, she was outmatched.

Then the ref interrupts us with a blown whistle.

"Illegal hold, DixFerLunch, you locked your hands." One point for Jane.

'Damn", I think to myself... "it wasn't on purpose, didn't even recognize I did it, I need to be more careful." I go back to working on the pin.

Shortly after, another whistle blow.

"Illegal hold, DixFerLunch. Second offense, 2 points Jane! If you do it again, you are disqualified!"

"What!? No way, I didn't do anything illegal!", I cry out.

I am now fully panicking. The thought of losing to a girl solely because of a locked hand penalty is now a very realistic possibility and I'm in disbelief that this happening.

I avoid her as much as possible until the first round is over and my coach waves me over as I plead for help. He gave me the best advice he could give...

"Dix, this ref has it out for you! Ball your hands into fists. I don't want to see your fingers anymore. No fingers, no penalty!

"How am I supposed to pin her with no hands coach?"

"Don't pin her. Throw her on the ground, get 2 points and walk away. Pick her up, take her down. Pick her up, take her down."

So that's exactly what I did. I looked dead in the refs eyes, balled up my hands and told him, "No more fingers..." (I don't think he liked that). And for the next four minutes, I bull rushed this poor girl.

Pick up her leg, slam her into the mat, get up, walk away, 2 points. Throw her by her head into the mat, get up, walk away, 2 points. Take her legs out from under her, back flat on the mat, get up, walk away, 2 points. Over and over and over. Each time she hit the mat she would groan. Each time, the groan got worse and worse but I would get my 2 points and that's all that mattered to me.

She never stopped getting up, so she kept getting slammed down and by the end, of the match she was audibly sobbing and I felt like the biggest asshole in the world.

I didn't lose to a girl though.