Fight! Fight! Fight!

john eden

male pale and stale
Last time with proper one-on-one fists-in-faces was probably when I was about 11 or 12. (1981?)

Which of course I lost, to the tune of one big fat black eye.

Everything since has been handbags-at-dawn pushing and shoving in comparison, I'm pleased to say. (unless I've forgotten some? I haven't have I? :eek: )
 

martin

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john eden said:
(unless I've forgotten some? I haven't have I? :eek: )

Apart from smacking me in the mouth when I slagged off Merzbow, but I was too ashamed to admit I cried afterwards.

Personally, I think people should give up fighting after the age of 18. Pub fights are really cringeworthy.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
martin said:
Apart from smacking me in the mouth when I slagged off Merzbow, but I was too ashamed to admit I cried afterwards. .

I slipped - I was trying to shake your hand. Honest! Damn this usless hand/eye co-ordination... :eek:

martin said:
Personally, I think people should give up fighting after the age of 18. Pub fights are really cringeworthy.

"Nooo leave it! He ain't worth it, Martin!"
 

martin

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So that's it? Nobody else has been in a fight? This is a very civilised forum, obviously. Or else this is just the most crap Dissensus thread.

I was only setting up a pacifist 'straw man', honest.
 

Melchior

Taking History Too Far
I have been in almost no fights at all... last time that anything came even close was in... 1996 maybe. 97? Anyway, was at a punk show at Thistle Hall (the place we had all ages shows in wellington), and there was a drunk skin pushing his mates around. Someone had a dog there (stupid bloddy place for a dog), and the skin pushed his mate into the dog, who got a fright. I said to the skin 'hey, watch out for the dog' turned around and got punched in the back of the head. I sort of wandered away, sat on the front of the stage for a bit, then saw the skin dacing in front of me, so returned the favour. He jumped on me, and everyone else tore him off me and threw him down the stairs. So I guess that's a win on the basis of having more friends than him...
 
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Omaar

Guest
A couple of weeks ago, outside a party I was attending, a chap said something severely inappropriate to my lady, so I told him not to say things like that. I guess I should have stood up when I said that, but it wouldn't really have mattered cos he was much bigger than me anyway. Anyway, i was impressed by his clever riposte to my challenge - he tore my glasses off my face before kicking my beer out of my hand. I imagine his brain ticking over .. 'must not kick someone's beer out of their hand if they wear glasses .... but what if i ..." I think at that point I thought it would be a good idea to stand up, but by that time a local film critic had stepped in to sort him out. I did say mean things to him as he walked off though.

The whole thing was quite ridiculous. I guess it doesn't count as a proper fight though.

Martin - I hope you were joking about NZ and kiwis being crap (see what country's music sux thread) . Else let's take this outside and settle it ... ;)

I can't remember throwing a serious punch since I was maybe 14. My thumb still hurts.
 

martin

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Omaar said:
Martin - I hope you were joking about NZ and kiwis being crap (see what country's music sux thread) . Else let's take this outside and settle it ... ;)

I'm not prejudiced against all Kiwis - just against all the ones I've met. I've just left a flat where the Kiwi woman was completely insane (as in 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane' mentally ill). Also, when I was in Kanchanaburi in Thailand, the only person who started screaming abuse at the Thais, telling them they were cunts, was a Kiwi. So, as you can see, I've met two nightmare Kiwis and therefore feel qualified to write off NZ entirely.

(True story - I once dated a girl who said, "Why do they call them the all-blacks? Those two are white")
 

mms

sometimes
i had a fight with my mates brother about 6 years ago,just some joking about that got out of hand.
there used to be interschool fighting which got a bit bad sometimes,i got punched in the face one friday in town and all this stuff blew up, kids getting chased etc, all this teenage bollocks.
there were always these planned fights in the park on saturdays but the rumours of weapons etc got so out of hand it transpired no one would really ever turn up.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
Omaar said:
a local film critic had stepped in to sort him out. I did say mean things to him as he walked off though.

never mess with a film critic.

last physical fight= 14 years old. got punched on nose. didn't punch back. rubbish

however, about 8 years ago i jumped on the back of a really fat man who was strangling a (cheeky) friend until he let go. still rubbish.
 

polystyle

Well-known member
Hmmm
Just to say I don't remember every really getting into a real fist fight ...
I go Hmmm , because as angry as I used to be / used to get - it's surprises me , looking back !
Gotten almost mugged but saw it coming and warded them off ,
thrown a bottle back after they insult my lady ,
dancing /moshing and getting pissed at someone overacting , ready to throw a punch yea ,
helping various strangers (not like i used plan this) NOT get mugged and facing down the stup thugs afterwards (pocketblade vs Stun gun ? nah they didn't try it ) -

these activities mostly in the 1980's anyway and those troubles in the city receeding fast
what with french Bistros now lining Ave. B
 

mms

sometimes
martin said:
Apart from smacking me in the mouth when I slagged off Merzbow, but I was too ashamed to admit I cried afterwards.

Personally, I think people should give up fighting after the age of 18. Pub fights are really cringeworthy.


some people never have a fight though .They get into trouble when they are older ,and don't realise that getting hit really hurts. They think they are probably a bit handy,but anyone that fights past 20 yrs old are gonna be pretty into it i reckon. I've defended these people before and when they finally get kicked in they really don't like it at all.
 
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nomos

Administrator
I don't think I've ever had a real one, just some scuffles. This is a major feat considering the town I grew up in where guys would go to bars only looking to fight or fuck (didn't matter which, could be both or the same) by the end of the night. I recently heard that a fellow I went to high school with (he would be about 29 now) had made a trip to Toronto specifically to see "what the fight scene was like." I saw the most violent things I've seen in my life inside my high school hallways and in the parking lot. I remember blood smears all up and down the hall one day after lunch. Three people went to hospital.
 
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This is good and cathartic. Let's see....

Me vs. James Lark, fastest runner in St Mary's RC primary school. I was 8 I think. Gave him a bit of a pasting and was told off in front of the school during assembly. Even worse, the headmistress, a formidable nun who owned a greyhound called Sammy, threatened to set him on me in her office.

Me vs. Gary from another school - it was snowing, snowballs were thrown at kids from another school, one of them punched my mate Shaun, so I chinned him with my own frost-covered gloved hand. I was 10 or 11. Scary thing was, loads of kids from the other school turned up the next week and I had to be hustled out of a side exit.

Me vs Ramjam - he randomly clouted me as I cycled away uphill. I lost that one, but he was a lot older. Can't remember what it was all over.

Last fight proper was In the sixth form, must have been 17. Pretty serious scrap involving a pair of scissors, a stapler and multiple kicks in the bollocks. I lost that one, but later became great mates with the aggressor - tripping, going to raves, all sorts.

A fight with a housemate at university - he was 5 foot nothing but had trained in all sorts of terrible martial arts to a very high standard, so that one ended before it began. We both realised it would be a terrible idea, so displaced the aggression by dranking bottles of gin, vodka, tequila and smoking skunk through a crushed pepsi can. That done, we smashed the flat up rather badly. Woke up 36 hours later with a bowl of weetabix on my lap prepared by the flatmate.

Nothing since then apart from a few verbals in shops and bars in N. London and some pushing in a bar in Tokyo a year ago, none of which developed into anything worse.

Worst fight I saw was in the DnB tent at the 1997 Tribal GAthering, shit, nearly 8 years ago now. It was a really vicious eye-clawing, bottle-smashing scrap between a rasta and some leather-jacketed, serbian-looking fella. It rolled past me, outside the tent, broke up a little, before the 'serb' looked around, picked up a bottle of rolling rock from the floor, smashed it over the other guy's head, rammed it into his neck and then into his guts. I don't know how that turned out, I decided to leave the scene.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Sat, went to a bar with a couple of friends. I didn't see but seems some guy in there started attacking the bar man who was more than 60 years old. My friend took exception to this and told - and I mean literally just told, making no effort to pull him back or anything - the agressor to stop.... and this guy completely fucking lost it, came charging at him swinging a bottle and when people held him back he threw it at him, and then he grabbed another and another and started throwing them at him. His mates piled in too and got my other friend on the floor started hitting him - I'd done literally nothing but two guys swung amd hit me in the face and another landed a blow on the back of my head as I escaped.... they chased us out and we had to leg it.... round the corner, hid behind some cars. Mad.

Honestly it was like they were trying to kill us. Scary to think people are walking around with this insane, directionless rage milimetres below the surface. Reflecting on it, I bet if someone asked them why they were hitting me they wouldn't have been able to say... but even so they were absolutely frenzied, faces contorted with hatred. As they followed us into the street shouting loudly about... what?

Amazingly none of us were really hurt. I was quite impressed by my ability to absorb punches to the face - I had my hands wide apart in the air saying "why?" - but I think that they were so drunk and angry that their wild swings didn't really connect.

It's weird that I'm not too pissed off- probably cos I'm fine - and I started to wonder about their lives, how unhappy they must be to want to strike out like that. My friend said "Don't make excuses for them" but I'm not sure I was quite doing that.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
it’s like looking at Michael Bisping and wondering which eye‘s boss, people can be all over you from multiple angles in seconds so unless you’re numbered up a bottle in the face isn’t practically conducive to life

channel the rage Rich, promise you’ll love a session below, no wondering why someone’s in your grill just immediate deployment of how they might not be


do your first 5 vs 1 drill all helmeted up with sticks and tell me that’s not a rush
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
it’s like looking at Michael Bisping and wondering which eye‘s boss, people can be all over you from multiple angles in seconds so unless you’re numbered up a bottle in the face isn’t practically conducive to life

Who is that guy?

channel the rage Rich, promise you’ll love a session below, no wondering why someone’s in your grill just immediate deployment of how they might not be

Thing is right, I didn't feel much rage. Or even much of anything to be honest. At the time it was all quick and I didn't think. Then we were out of the bar and away on a street over, and my mate said "Let's not go up to the top cos they could come round that way and surround us" - and it was only then that I thought "hmmm, we're in situation here" - or at least we could be.


do your first 5 vs 1 drill all helmeted up with sticks and tell me that’s not a rush

I can imagine enjoying it... I guess... I dunno. I suppose I'm not a violent person, but I can be a competitive one. So I suspect that if you make a competition out of violence then I might sort of become violent by default, I dunno.


See, if you'd taken those boxing lessons you could've belted him in the schnozz.
Now it's interesting you say that actually, cos my friend who suggested the boxing lessons was the one who told the guy to stop hitting the old guy. And after we'd collected ourselves in a bar round the corner he started saying that he wished that we had already got cracking on the lessons. Which was quite revealing to me - I had thought that we were going to be doing it as a sport, as a contest between me and him, whereas it now turns out that he had it in mind, at least partly, as some kind of self-defence.

But, to me, if you wanted pure self-defence, I can't imagine that boxing is the best one. As WYH says, Krav Maga is the sort of thing you need if you REALLY do have to fight to survive. I assume that if we had done some boxing then I would at least know how to throw a punch, but it doesn't use your legs etc

I truly imagined that Aidan and i were gonna do boxing as the sweet science... I think (hope) that i'm faster than him so in my mind I'm dancing around him like Sugar Ray Robinson, tormenting his helpless lumbering form with my jabs... at no point on Saturday did I connect what had happened with our plan to do boxing until the same three of us were were walking home from Ministerium about 10am on Sunday and inevitably our conversation turned back to earlier in the evening. But even then, for some reason, I just didn't feel vindictive or hateful as I would surely have done when younger. Is it possible that I've mellowed with age, or could my testosterone levels have fallen? I guess if any of us had been seriously hurt I might have felt differently. And it was very very lucky indeed that none of us were. Like it was weird in fact.

The main thing I've been thinking about is - what kind of person is so angry that they will attack like that for no reason. Are they just angry with life, bitter and out for revenge on everyone? How many people are like that and so on? To me that is something to think about.

Anyway, for me it was a crazy weekend - on Friday searched, breathalysed and intimidated by the police, Saturday attacked by nutters. And looking back, the police thing was much more unpleasant - both at the time and in its lasting effect. Trying to work out why that is, I think at least part of it boils down to, on Saturday, whatever else occurred, I was with my friends, whereas on Friday I was alone. Also, with those roided/coked up light blue police, there is always the suspicion that if they weren't grabbing people legally, they would be doing it anyway...
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
But, to me, if you wanted pure self-defence, I can't imagine that boxing is the best one. As WYH says, Krav Maga is the sort of thing you need if you REALLY do have to fight to survive. I assume that if we had done some boxing then I would at least know how to throw a punch, but it doesn't use your legs etc

People who care about that sort of thing seem to think that boxing is a pretty decent option, because a) punching people really hard in the face is fundamentally quite effective b) boxing involves actually going for it at full force against opponents who are really out to beat you rather than just drilling / doing "light sparring" and c) related to that, boxers tend to train pretty hard and pretty effectively because that's how you get punched in the face less.
 

Leo

Well-known member
People who care about that sort of thing seem to think that boxing is a pretty decent option, because a) punching people really hard in the face is fundamentally quite effective b) boxing involves actually going for it at full force against opponents who are really out to beat you rather than just drilling / doing "light sparring" and c) related to that, boxers tend to train pretty hard and pretty effectively because that's how you get punched in the face less.

as mike Tyson famously said: "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
 
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