The short story, "The Trapdoor", written by Sergio Rameriez Mercado and then translated into English by David Unger, was published this past December online in Guernica (yes, a name you keep seeing, note the pattern!), and it starts:
When Amado Gavilán climbed into the Los Angeles Staples Center ring on the afternoon of May 28, 2005, it was to fight an eight-round match against Arcadio Evangelista, an undefeated Philippine mini flyweight. It was the third match of a long fighting card that would conclude with the 10:00 p.m. main event—Julio César Chávez, the most famous Mexican boxer and the holder of five world titles in three weight divisions, was to battle welterweight Ivan “Mighty” Robinson in what would become his historic last fight.
Few in the audience had ever heard of Gavilán. On the other hand, Chávez—a fellow Mexican who was forty-two and just days away from retirement—, had an impressive 108 victories, eighty-seven by knockout. The odds-makers had made Chávez an overwhelming favorite to reap the financial rewards of a coast-to-coast pay-per-view contract.
While Chávez’s name was emblazoned on his robe, Gavilán wore a thin cape of anonymity. A year younger than Chávez, he had fought forty-one times and lost thirty-two, fourteen by knockout. He had no nickname—in fact, he never even considered calling himself Kid Gavilán (like the legendary Cuban welterweight champ whose real name was Gerardo González), as his part-time trainer Frank Petrocelli had once suggested. His name certainly gave him the right, but he felt it was sacrilegious because there had already been one Kid Gavilán—
To spurn a moniker but stand out just the same, he’d have to be like Chávez. A sportswriter for Tijuana’s El Sol had once called Gavilán “the gentleman of the ring” because of his nice manners and his kind treatment of opponents in the ring. He was a restrained fighter—not a killer seeking a bloody victory—no publicist would’ve thought of putting “gentleman of the ring” on a boxing poster. Another disadvantage was he weighed 108 pounds and fought in the mini fly division, where naturally there were no stars and little heroism. If flyweight isn’t degrading enough, a mini fly is worse.
Sergio Ramirez Mercado does a great job of setting up his story in these four paragraphs, giving us enough information about Amado Gavilian, about boxing, about the night in question, and setting we, his readers, up for the rest of the story. There's no action in the above paragraphs, nothing that really affects the plot specifically, but without the above, the rest of the story isn't nearly as strong. It's a fine example that at times there should be room for exposition and expansion of a story.
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