Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

So what was your most memorable fist fight?

Page: (1)2 3

00:22 / 27.02.03

I know the world would be a better place if we all did the Jesus Ghandi thing and turned the other cheek. And that's admirable. But let's not stereotype all Barbelonians. Some of us fight, like fighting, don't like fighting but had to fight. So a call for the macho bullshit. Describe your best fight memory.

07:03 / 27.02.03

[ Entry deleted at poster's request ]

08:52 / 27.02.03

Most memorable fist fight was when Norman Lamont's sphincter tightened and I could barely extricate my right hand in time to present the 1993 British Comedy Awards.

Hang on, no, that wasn't me; that was Julian Clary. Allegedly.

10:01 / 27.02.03

Oh wait, I remember having a great time when my Dad was punching me across the living room, then grabbing me by my (at the time) long hair.

The bit I liked the most was my mother screaming at him to stop, and my kid brother crying.

Or, the one where I strayed out of my 'designated' area as a kid and into a different estate. A gang of lads beat seven shades of shit out of me before I managed to escape on my bike.

So, fist fights, they're great kids. Have 'em all the time, that's what I say. They'll destroy your confidence for ages, make you scared of even looking at people and you'll build up loads of revenge fantasies that take years to work out of your personality.

Jack, life isn't Fight Club you know.

The Natural Way

11:17 / 27.02.03

My best fight:

Ten years old dressed in my 'Battlesuit' (tm) I took on Daniel Charman, hardman of Burwash Primary. The suit consisted of a fluffy pillow padding out my chest and a 'Powerfist'(tm) that looked suspiciously like a massive plug. I challenged Charman to combat (he was evil and had to learn) in the changing rooms. I powerfisted him and then he threw a chair at me. Powerfist: DEFLECT!

Runce wins!

All the while the music to 'He-man' was running in my head. It was so exilhirating it made me want to cry.

11:24 / 27.02.03

I beat up Goro as Rayden with a double flawless when my friends said it couldn't be done. That was an affront to my masculinity and my whole street cred in general. That learned 'em.
......and it was definitely macho.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

11:40 / 27.02.03

As Spider-Man against the green goblin. Pow! Blammo! Whacko! I kicked him off his glider, and punched around like a rag doll! Smack! And I finished him off with a solid and quite, quite beautiful haymaker.

Computer games are where all the best fights are.

12:00 / 27.02.03

I've never been in one, and I am eternally thankful for it. Still, I don't think Jack should be totally flamed here. It's a fair question. Some people enjoy scrapping. Oh and thanks for the comedy genius, 'Nesh and Runce, you guys make megahangovers infinately more bearable.

12:14 / 27.02.03

I've never been in a fistfight. The last act of violence I committed was when I was six. I was out at recess playing with some toy I brought, two other kids came over and picked it up, and I stood up and smacked their heads together. I had just seen a cartoon character do the exact same thing the day before. Does that mean watching violence leads to violence?

12:38 / 27.02.03

would it be fair to say that most of us here are what might be termed 'pantwaists', or at least were at school?

fighting is not cool if you hate to lose, but if you are willing to be knocked a bit silly and occasionally win, it can be fun. most of the time you dont do any permanent damage anyway, its only pain, and it lasts less time than the memories.

i for one have fought loads of my friends, and if i am not stoned, i can get quite into it. (piss take fighting, obviously. i wouldnt see it as the best way to amicably deal with a dispute. its hard to be civil if you are bleeding or holding a clump of your own hair)

life could and often should be like fight club. i mean, i too wear a suit with no underwear or shirt, and it always gets me into fights...

12:57 / 27.02.03

would it be fair to say that most of us here are what might be termed 'pantwaists', or at least were at school?

Not at all. I had numerous fights in school - sorting out pecking order etc. coz I wasn't from the estate the rest of the kids were from. I even won a few of them. I still think that it wasn't the best way to settle the dispute though.

And as far as play fights go, my brother and I used to go at it hammer and tongs when we were kids - towels wrapped round our hands as makeshift boxing gloves - great stuff. It toughened us up to life's knocks, but we knew where the line was drawn and would always stop if the other one wanted to.

But that's just it - playing at fighting is fun (as is playing at most things). Real fights are nasty and solve nothing.

13:22 / 27.02.03

You see toksik what your forgetting is alot of the people on here are you know English if you know what I mean. Maybe what we should do is form our own tag team and show em what real fun is all about, I was thinking something like "The Rockers" but I don't know about you but I don't really have the body for that. So maybe we could be the secret twins of Roddy Piper, kilts and all that.

So for the next Barbemeet I suggest the first ever Barbe-view!

Toksik and Bear V's Haus and Flyboy for the tag titles.
and how about Ganesh V's Xoc in a Hell in a Cell?
Anymore ideas?

I'll let you pick our team name, brother.

yawn - thing's buddy

19:10 / 27.02.03

If yer fighting the english, yer gonnae need me ya cunts.

And then I might knock your cunts in n aw!

Anyway, there was the time I was set upon by a gang of exotic neds from Haghill - I broke free, they tried to punch me; I dogded and weaved; ran round the side of a car - they stared across the bonnet at me.

A bottle was flung.

I ducked.

it missed and crashed the deck behind me.

A pincer attack forces me to jump across the bonnet (hey, we're really there now, yeah!?)

Some cunt flung a chib at us.

I was running down the road by this time.

I turned round at the bottom of the hill.

I screamed obscenities at them at the top of my lungs.

Then I rolled a joint and walked the rest of the way home.

Truth is, I've never been in a serious fight (apart from the doin' I took at Euro 2000 (for research purposes)).

But I've been in plenty of tense situations where I might have got slaughtered.

Clubs n Drugs n a gobby mouth innit.

19:35 / 27.02.03

Truth is, I've never been in a serious fight (apart from the doin' I took at Euro 2000 (for research purposes)). – yawn

"research purposes"??? Aw, c'mon. Do tell.

Me, I'm more a lover than a fighter...but I do recall one sordid evening in a Tiki Bar in San Francisco. This wanker was hassling my best friend for a date, I told him to fuck off, she wasn't interested, he & I got into this huge nasty verbal argument, he suggests we take it outside, then...

Someone else at the bar crashes a chair over his head. A huge brawl ensues, and I grab my best friend's arm and we run out of there like bats out of hell.

Freaky.

20:06 / 27.02.03

In 8th grade, this slow-witted fellow who had the locker above me would thorp me every day. One day, I stood up, and thorped the SHIT out of his head. He then punched me in the face. I fell down, right as a teacher walked around the corner. He got 6 months detention or something.

That was my only "fight."

I'm also pretty good with Cervantes in Soul Caliber

22:17 / 27.02.03

I know it seems like a terribly Barbe thing to say, but could someone define fight?

Do both parties have to throw punches/kicks or is getting punched a fight? If you get slammed against a wall is that a fight?

I was actually talking on this topic last night. I estimated that I'd been in about 60 proper fights in my life. I grew up in a crap area and was involved in about fight a week until I was 16 or 17. Some were lame, some were at school, some were because of boredom, some were because of race.

Never been stabbed, but have been cut and saw a mate next to me get stabbed - though not deep. Been hit with things other than fists and have hit people with things other than fists.

(Cholister. That's crap what happened to you and I am sorry. I'll tell you something though, from experience. What you went through, it's not a fight, it's beating from a coward.)

The point? My most memorable fight was around 2 years ago, at a club. A guy had been grabbing girls on the dancefloor, he'd grabbed a friends girlfriend, we'd told the buncer, he didn't seem to care. I was watching my girlfriend dance with a friend of hers and this guy started dancing next to them. Obviously I get alert and watchful and sure enough as he was getting off the dancefloor he reached out and grabbed her arse. She turned and screamed at him and the look of outrage and hurt on her face just set something off in my head. I ran after him and pinned him against a wall and had words with him - or rather I threatened him with bodily harm if he ever did anything like that again.

The reason it's the most memorable is because I felt like a total fucking idiot after. My friends were happy, my girlfriend was proud and I felt like a tit. It was one of the few times in my life when it felt just like so much macho bullshit. Haven't been in a fight or even a confrontation since, it's amazing how easy it is, sometimes, to just keep on walking.

22:49 / 27.02.03

Maybe our definitions of "fight" differ. I meant a fist fight. The classic John Wayne both groups wish to pummel the other fight. Maybe your defintion of fight is being abused by your parents or boyfriend, that's not what I meant at all. Thanks for the stories though, I will now try to remember not to beat my kids or girlfriend.

What's with the venom? Fighting's a normal way of life around here, especially in your teens and early twenties. Are your countries that peaceful and polite, or would you say that the members of this board are not a very accurate representation when it comes to fighting?

I've been involved in many fist fights, and it's just something that happens. Maybe you're insulting someone, and he feels he has to stand up to you. Maybe it's the other way around. I've never killed anyone or seriously injured anyone in a fist fight. Out of all the fights over the years, I haven't made mortal enemies with anyone I've fought. It's just fighting. It's like sex, a normal part of life which you could avoid if you really wanted to. But sometimes two consenting adults, or more, decide they want to do it.

23:08 / 27.02.03

Funny. You're all for trading battle stories, but don't like it when people fight you about it.

23:32 / 27.02.03

No, it's just that I started the thread about fighting, and it immediately became something else. It's like if I had started a thread about your favorite sexual experience, and the 1st two responses were about someone's father raping them, and a college date rape story.

07:36 / 28.02.03

What's with the venom? Fighting's a normal way of life around here, especially in your teens and early twenties.

And that makes it right does it? Makes me glad I grew up in quietly provincial North Wales, where there was virtually no chance of being beaten up on the way home from a pub on a Friday night.

Are your countries that peaceful and polite,

No, not at all. But I am sure they would be a lot more so if people had less fights, and resovled their differences by some less violent means. Again, harking back to NW (gahd, I never thought I'd reminisce favourably about the old country!), it could occasionaly get a bit rough, but it wasn't the sort of place where you had to learn to use your fists to survive. If that is where you live then I sincerely hope you don't get kicked in too often - but at the same time I hope you don't do the kicking in too often either.

or would you say that the members of this board are not a very accurate representation when it comes to fighting?

Maybe we are an accurate representation when it comes to fighting?

08:14 / 28.02.03

I've never had a 'fist fight' (nor, fingers crossed, been beaten up), and I have to say, Jack, that your experience of what's normal is a long way from mine. It's not just a female thing either - none of the guys I know get into fights regularly, or even at all.

I don't regard it as a normal part of life, I think it's something to be avoided wherever possible. And I think the responses here reflect most people's attitude to violence and (apparent) bragging about it. But hey, so long as it's between consenting adults, do what you like..

Nietzsch E. Coyote

08:15 / 28.02.03

Well, I can say i have been in a lot of fights. But not a one since highschool ended. Well unless you count the time I was mugged.

I can also say that I only initiated one fight ever. In grade six, the boy had picked on me for three quarters of the school year, beatings, group beatings, name calling, minor theft. I had only hit him back once in the entire year. But that day he and three friends had beat me up in recess. So when I came back from lunch I walked right up to him and got him in a headlock. I might have hit his head once or twice but it was mainly to embarass him. When I let go he pounded me good, and then the teacher walked in. Finally the fights were taken seriously and I happily did all the detention I was handed. Last fight/beating with that kid.

Nietzsch E. Coyote

08:16 / 28.02.03

Damn it sometimes you have to fight back!

08:39 / 28.02.03

Jack, I think the venom comes from the fact that it keys into a lot of bad experiences for people. Pretty obvious really. People get fucking hurt. As we’ve seen in this thread the term “fighting” covers a range of experiences from serious abuse and assault to play wrestling. I agree that physical conflict is part of life and should be up for discussion but to assert that it’s just “normal” and we can celebrate it without being critical is pretty stupid, not to mention grossly insensitive.

Personally, I’ve got a negative reaction to the concept “fighting” because it brings up into negative memories and parts of my personality. I was a macho dickhead when I was at school and threw my weight around because I was insecure. Luckily enough I wasn’t from a rough area like Rakehell, and was not too fucked up or angry about other shit in my life, so this behaviour didn’t continue past 16. However, I’ve still had – and still have – lots of violent fantasies and instances of acting like a macho twat when it’s completely uncalled for. It’s a part of my behaviour I’m trying to leave behind and grow out of. It doesn’t “just happen” – it’s complex and part of the whole constellation of our responses to situations and frequently it reflects the worst of us.

The Return Of Rothkoid

09:25 / 28.02.03

I'm with Lullaboozler and Ariadne.

I try to avoid fights, whenever I can, because they're fucking stupid. This "John Wayne" stuff is a crock of bullshit. It's innocent physical activity on both sides? I think not. It's about some kind of show of domination, some kind of one-person-over-another thing that bespeaks a lot about insecurities or aggression, and not a lot about the sort of good-time athletic fun that seems to be thought of by some posters. To me, fights are fucking nothing but bad. I'm not against being vaguely intimidating - that's my other state of being - but I abhor violence, and though I get amazingly angry at things, I will sooner punch walls than people. I will come the heavy vocally, and put on the show, but I'm going to avoid violence if I can help it because I know that a) if I do punch, it'll not be good and b) I'll fucking cut myself up about it for days afterwards.

And like others, my memories of fighting are inextricably wound around family members and bad times. I don't want to revisit being fucking hit by my father, or my brother, about that sort of shit happening in my own home; I think that's why you're getting such a reaction.

My most memorable fight? When I still drank Kronenbourg, I almost had a fight at a barbemeet. I was actually wound back, ready to fucking kill another poster here, and it was only by the good fortune of Jack The Bodiless hanging himself off my elbow that I was stopped. It all fell in a sack of shit after that, and I was fucking disgusted with myself for getting into a situation where I lost control like that. Also, I was pissed, so everything was magnified. But I know for a fact, given that I'm not exactly a fucking weedy chap, that if I'd've hit said person, it wouldn't have been good at all. It wasn't pretty, and wouldn't have been had it gone further. But fights never fucking are.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:57 / 28.02.03

Ah, I have such happy memories of that barbemeet. One of the all-time classics. I think that many of us still owe kookymojo an apology for turning her birthday party into an entire album of Morrissey tracks remixed by Atari Teenage Riot. An orgy of scratching, hair-pulling and girlyman windmilling.

I haven't been in very many fights since I left school and at school the violence was, although not exactly a bundle of joy, primarily performative - pecking order scuffles and the odd barney in a pub, but nobody really wanting to cause enough damage to anyone else to make it serious. I got far more banged up fencing. Otherwise...well, there was the time somebody tried to goad me into beating them up to get me sent down, but that wasn't really a fight per se. There was the time a friend got drunk and aggressive and I knocked him down, but that wasn't really a fight either in any meaningful sense. The only "fistfight" of any note I can remember having been in since college was when I was mugged, which was just comical - me wired on adrenaline, and as such not really feeling muggers punching me...if one of them hadn't had the decency to mention his knife I think we could have been stuck in the middle of the road trading ineffectual blows for hours...

So, that. What I do dislike intensely though is the feeling of tautness and nasty shortly before and for some time after a fight looks like it's brewing up, which is a horrible sensation and not one I see much point in seeking out, since those situations are usually not ones in which violence is a necessary last resort to achieve greater global security. I'd much rather try to identify the problem and take steps either to resolve it or remove myself from it. Munich-style.

But, of course, differnet people function differently in different environments. DJ Oi and Cop Killer of this Parish, if I recall, set up a blissfully irony-free fight club of two in which they gleefully beat each other up, perhaps for want of a thriving arts scene....

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:04 / 28.02.03

Props to Illmatic for a very sensible post. It always amazes me that so many people can't distinguish between 'normal' as in "this is an experience I've had and an instinct I feel" and 'normal' as in "this is an aspect of life which should be accepted uncritically".

10:35 / 28.02.03

You don't know me and I don't know the rules but,

For me fighting is what happens when you lose control of your temper(ament), it's a way of releasing pent-up frustation, a quick fix. A bit like the urge to take drugs and 'lose' it. I haven't done much fighting in the last 10 years but from what I remember the come-down isn't worth the initial thrill of talking with your fists.

Like Babooshka, I'm intrigued to know what kind of research merits taking a 'doin' - yawn?

10:47 / 28.02.03

Thanks Fly.

I might add that I don’t think there’s a safe category of violence called a “fist fight”. A act of violence is inherently uncertain and volatile and could quite quickly leave you with a broken nose, jaw or ribs. Or even dead – a few deaths occur ever year in the UK are due to people being punched, falling backwards and hitting the backs of heads.

10:55 / 28.02.03

I've only been in 2 fights since I left school. Both with the same person who happens to be one of my closest friends. I don't make a habit of it but I have to say if the air was never cleared we wouldn't be friends anymore. I still feel justified in kicking his head in and if I was in the same situation again I'd probably lose it again. Basically he was fucking this girl I was in love with and living with behind nmy back. To me you just don't betray your friends like that. Fair enough she was a total whore but I don't believe you should let me people think they can walk all over you. I'm not getting into a blow by blow account cos I'm not exactly proud of it. The fight was short and messy and physically I came out on top (covered in blood - not my own as well) but it took me a very long time to get my head together over it. Actually, I slashed my wrists later that day. It was definitely better that i gave him a kicking than some of my other mates who wanted to. You live and learn.
All this shit happened about 7 years ago. For the record I don't believe in fighting and avoid it when possible. In street situations I always believe in not giving anyone any shit and if someone starts on me I avoid a scrap. Funny too, at the weekend I was on the piss in Dublin and this lad I was talking to lost it at me, accused me of insulting his country and got his mate over to give me a hard time. Why I don't know? I just tried to calm him down and when that didn't work just ignored him and took a different exit out of the pub. Fuck I hate people who get aggressive on drink/drugs.
Fighting - ugly stuff but sometimes shit happens.

11:04 / 28.02.03

On a slightly tangential note, I wonder whether individual experiences of playground fights informs one's wider philosophy on the potential of aggression to solve or conclude conflict. I say this because many of those proposing a war on Iraq seem to espouse the homespun belief that the only way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them. Quite apart from the fact that this reduces international politics to 'fist fight' status, my own experience really doesn't bear the cliche out: I've always found it more useful to find common ground with the bully or disinform him of the even bigger bully over there who plans to gob on his blazer.

So, let's test this theory... did anyone ever end bullying by 'standing up' to it in open conflict? Are you pro-war as a result?

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:05 / 28.02.03

Well, quite. If you get into a fighty fighty situation you accept tacitly that you are prepared to risk both suffering and inflicting severe injury or possibly death, no matter how small that chance is. Generally I am not a big fan of being hurt, but I think that is actually outweighed by my fear of the ethical and legal hassle of seriously hurting somebody else; which is not to say that I am unduly indifferent to my own suffering, only that I hate paperwork.

If the muggers had just wandered up, introduced themselves as muggers and asked politely for my wallet I would never have fought them, for example; it was only the confusion at having just been punched in the face that made me fail to consider the "give us all your money" proposition more adroitly.

That's sort of what I meant about the sort of fights people had in school - Lupus' example of the headlock being a fairly good example - the standard schoolyard scrap being one kid putting the other in a headlock and walking them around for half an hour asking them if they give up. The aim is not harm, and there seemed to be a set of unspoken rules - punches to the head not on, kicks to the ribs not on, and so on. I remember restraining somebody from a fight between himself and another that was getting far too serious in school, and there being perceptible shock when he tried to get out of the hold by driving the back of his head into my face, because that was the sort of thing you just didn't *do*.

But I think Fly and Illmatic's distinction is a very good one. As children we feel these impulses (they are "natural") and we are too young and too chaotic to negotiate them successfully except possibly through paths supported by history and consensus. When we grow up, it's incumbent upon us to try our best to behave more like grown-ups, which IMHO probably means adopting a more critical viewpoint re: our fighty fighty impulses.

yawn - thing's buddy

13:35 / 28.02.03

Welcome to the Abyss.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:44 / 28.02.03

Basically he was fucking this girl I was in love with and living with behind nmy back.

I have to ask...do you mean you and she were living together as cohabiting partners, or that you were flatmates?

13:45 / 28.02.03

I might add that I don’t think there’s a safe category of violence called a “fist fight”. A act of violence is inherently uncertain and volatile and could quite quickly leave you with a broken nose, jaw or ribs. Or even dead... – Mr. Illmatic

Y'know, I hear that, totally. And I'm really glad this thread has turned into something different and more thought-provoking.

During the experience that I posted above, I was fucking terrified because this guy was bigger than me, and a very nasty drunk. I stood up for my friend because he was being very physically & sexually aggressive with her and she was frightened speechless. I do recall that when he asked me outside, I refused to go, and he wasn't expecting that. The split second of hesitation on his part gave a bystander who was very pissed off with this huge drunken fucker harassing us the chance to slam him one with the chair.

It wasn't fun or playful. It was really scary, and she & I were very lucky that dude with the chair did what he did. Enough time has passed that I can look back on it with a sense of humour (because I was really shooting my mouth off at him, all clever-fucking-clever, and he was like "DUH...I'LL KILL YOU!!!" So much for being clever, eh?) but my behavior was nothing to really brag about.

Like I said: I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Page: (1)2 3