You know how things just pop in your mind from time to time that just make you crack up ? You could be doing anything. Working. Working out. Talking to someon. Eating. When all of the sudden it hits you. Some moment from your past.
I don't know what triggered it, but all of the sudden I was remembering the last time I got into a fight. A fight where real punches were thrown. It was hysterical....
It probably was 15 years ago. I was in Dallas and we went down to the West End. A part of town that at the time had some fun bars and places to hang out.
It was about 4pm or so. I was with my buddies Ron and Scott and we were getting an early start on happy hour. We pulled up to what I remember as a bar with bar stools that looked out on the open court of the Mall area of the building. Me, Scott, Ron at the corner of the bar. I was sitting, they were standing.
Just off to the side where I guess the Mall part started, there was one of those old recording booths. You remember those booths they would have around malls where you could go in and basically do your own personal karaoke and they would record it and give you a tape of it ?
Well to our delight, there was a guy in one of the booths who decided he was going to sing and record Elvis tunes. Not only was he going to sing Elvis tunes, but he decided he needed to keep the door to the booth open so that a couple girls sitting by us could watch him sing.
As I remember it, he wasn't that bad. But he was playing to these girls in a big way. Which we had no problem with. In fact we thought it was hysterical. THe more he sang and tried to impress these women with his Elvis voice and his Elvis facial contortions, the more we laughed. The longer he went , the more we couldn't stop laughing.
Then it happened.
No, he didnt run out and throw a punch. I remember it vividly. He turned his attention away from the girls and looked directly at me and sang to me:
"I challenge you to a sing off, I challenge you to a sing off "
Yep, the guy singing Elvis in the cassette tape recording booth was looking me right in the eye, giving me the crooked lip and singing an Elvis singoff challenge to me. We couldn't help ourselves. We were laughing so hard we were near convulsions. Then it happened.
There was a guy sitting to my right that I hadn't really noticed. I guess I glanced over towards him to see if he was laughing as hard as we were. He wasn't. What he was doing was in the process of standing and throwing a punch (i couldnt tell if it were jab, roundhouse or ?). The dude sucker-punched me. While i was laughing my ass off. Right in the midst of an Elvis Singoff Challenge.
My buddy Ron saw it coming before I did and was up and pushed him back off balance just enough for me to stand and start throwing those wild bar fight type punches. All the while we are still laughing trying to figure out what was going on.
Im swinging. Im laughing. Ron and Scott are laughing. I remember landing a punch and him stumbling but not going down. He had to be pissed that some guy was laughing and hitting him at the same time
It probably wasnt 30 seconds into it that the Cops showed up and had pulled me away.. At which point having to explain to the cops what had just happened caused us all to start laughing again.
Turns out the guy who suckerpunched me was a buddy of the guy singing. I guess he took his Elvis far more seriously than we did.
At the suggestion of the Police Officers, who by that time were trying not to laugh, the 3 of us left via the back elevator...
And here i sit years later , with a big smile on my face, memorializing my last fist fight
My Last Fist Fight
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Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. Go out to a bar sometime when your in Sacramento on a road trip and you'll probably see some good action again...
Posted at 10:50AM on Aug 16th 2007 by Mitchell Blatt, Juiced Sports Blog.com
3. I am amazed that your last fist fight was 15 years ago. That is pretty good work considering how many times I'm sure you've been tempted to throw a punch or two since Elvis guy.
Posted at 11:32AM on Aug 16th 2007 by David
5. 1981... Bluebird ... Bloomington, IN... Duke Tomatoes and the All Star Frogs were playing. We rumbled...I kicked your ass.... or did you kick my ass? Anyway... the band was good :)
Posted at 12:43PM on Aug 16th 2007 by mike
6. I remember my last (and also first and only fightas vividly as anything and it also happened 15 years ago. It was just about the end of sophomore year in high school, so I had just turned 16. I was still pretty small, maybe 5-8 and 110 pounds. This kid I knew from homeroom was talking trash out in the school's courtyard to a friend of mine who was bigger and taller than me. My friend got in his face, and the kid got nervous and claimed he was really talking to me. I had almost fought him once before but a friend broke it up. He tried to get in our way again but this time punches were already flying and he was getting hit. I don't remember feeling any pain when he caught my lip with hs fist, raking it against my braces and causing blood to spurt out all over my shirt. I stopped the fight right there, and of course the next day he told everyone he kicked my ass. I went to the nurse to get some ice and she told the dean. The dean called my dad and he left work to pick me up from school. I don't remember him being angry at all. I think he realized that I was a kid and stuff like that happened. I went to my 10 year reunion two years ago but I don't think he was there. Part of me was hoping he would show up. Not so I could fight him, that would have been pathetic, but out of curiousity. I wondered what it would be like to see someone you once punched in the face ten years later.
I don't recommend getting into a fight for the life experience to anyone, especially not to adults. Most adult men are strong enough to really hurt each other if they land a punch in the right place. But I did learn something valuable that day. I learned I could take a punch, and I learned that I was tougher than the 110 lb. version of me thought I thought I was. I also realized that I had a busted lip and messed up braces. I've never been in a fight again. But I think about it every once in a while when I bite my lip and feel the mass of scar tissue that's still there.
Posted at 12:57PM on Aug 16th 2007 by Pete
8. I remember my last fight. It was in college in 1999, and a buddy came up to my room and was all bent about a group of guys starting crap with him. This group of 4 guys who were visiting from a junior college looking to transfer, were trying to start a fight with people on walking in the dorms. So my buddy gets me, and a couple other of us to go down with him. We walk in and immediately, one of the guys gets in my buddy's face and pushed him. I walked up to that guy and head butted him in the nose, and followed with a punch somewhere on the head (I think below the eye). I think I broke his nose because blood went everywhere, and he couldn't stop it. One of his friends was coming up to hit me, and another buddy of mine busted him in the face, and the other 2 guys back down.
The whole thing lasted 20 seconds, tops with a total of 3 hits, unblocked and unexpected. Campus security came, and eventually made the guys pack up and leave campus because there were 15 individual complaints against them for trying to start a fight. We got away with everything, as it was reported as self-defense on our part.
Posted at 2:58PM on Aug 16th 2007 by Nate
10. Your comments: that was a very humiliating memory of a fight to share
with anybody
let alone to every body.i think i would keep elvis ass kicking to my
self.but it was funny though
Posted at 3:28PM on Aug 16th 2007 by leonel lopez avalos
11. Reminds me of the night the frat boy tried to pick-up Clawoman at Motley's Pub. Sitting at my table, drinking my beer, and trying to hit on my girl....then wanted to know what I was going to do about it. After I explained what happened and he got the bum's rush, his little buddy came up, asked if I was the one who hit that guy & proceeded to inform that it was his friend so he sucker-punched me. At that point you told me to quit fighting or I was going to have to leave. Shortly thereafter Carol took me home.
Posted at 3:59PM on Aug 16th 2007 by Coop
14. That's a great story...only you could get in a fight during an elvis singoff challenge!
Posted at 4:20PM on Aug 16th 2007 by Christina Crabtree
15. my last fistfight wasn't really a fistfight.
ten years ago - i was seventeen - playing cyo ball out in queens, new york. it was for the big apple tournament - and we we playing in the queens championship to go to the all city tournament.
suffice it to say - i wasn't the most congenial of athletes at the time. i was talking a lot of trash to the guard opposing me - and I kept making fun of the fact that he had a lazy eye. he got frustrated. he held me to 3 points in the first half, but i kept complaining that the ball we were using was old and slippery. in the second half, with a different ball, i score 29 and i keep flirting with his girlfriend - seated nearby. a wink here and there to get under his skin. we win the game. he vows to see me afterwards. i'm like, sure buddy.
sure enough, i step outside the gym later on and I swear tumbleweeds roll by and that old OK corral music plays. He's like, "what's all that you were saying earlier?" He's got like ten guys with him. I'm like, "what? I don't remember saying anything. great game by the way... all those turnovers, turnstyle defense? that's a good look." Being an undersized guard, this is usually the time when I look for the longest straightest stretch of pavement, confident I can outrun most attackers. There wasn't such a lane this time. So i revert to my default strategy - whenever confronted with multiples - it's a guaranteed loss. The goal is to get the weakest member of the group under you so you can pound him out while the rest pound you out - at least until you pass out or whatever. at least someone from the other side pays a price. So as they approach, I approach lazy eye and sock him hard in the face. He staggers back and everyone tries to pounce on me. I take off across from august martin high school towards baisley park - a place reputed to be filled with bodies of loudmouths like myself. Ironic, or merely coincidental... i don't know. I hear several loud popping sounds and duck instinctively. What feels like a hammer hits me moderately hard on the outside part of the right shoulder blade. I get into a dollar van on merrick blvd (having run the like 8 long blocks to get there)and ride it home - feeling simultaneously high on endorphins and weak... and wet - I realize that I'm bleeding in the dollar van. I was shot in the right shoulderblade with a 22.
Since, then, being that I've since developed a violent allergy to bullets - I let my jump shot do the talking. interestingly enough, my street name from about 7 years old was "lucky" or "luck". Lived up to it after the fact, i guess.
shout out to dre and them from rochdale. sorry, flashbacks cause me to backslide.
Posted at 5:30PM on Aug 16th 2007 by blyx
16. That was a great story! I love it when you blog about things not related to business or technology. Not that those posts suck, I just like to laugh.
Posted at 5:32PM on Aug 16th 2007 by Quirkee James
17. Its good that you can laugh now but somehow to me, it doesn't that David Stern and Alan Silver aren't quite over it. Wow, who knew he could croon out a good Elvis?
Posted at 9:32PM on Aug 16th 2007 by John Botefuhr
18. The last street fight I was in was like 2 1/2 years ago. My younger brother was out shooting his mouth somewhere and he comes up to me as I'm walking out of my apartment and tells me that he's about to get jumped.
Some guys walk up and I try to play peacemaker... the next thing I know, we are getting our asses kicked by half of the Ohio University wrestling team.
I was able to defend myself all right, by my brother and my roommate both got booted in the face multiple times when they were down. I had to manually set in place my brother's severely broken nose.
Then like 10 minutes later my brother is out talking with some kid he knew from the wrestling team that wasn't there beating us up... so I walk down to make sure he doesn't take another beating.
And some little freshman wrestler looks at me in the eyes and goes... "what the fuck are you looking at?"... and mind you this was just 10 minutes after the very first time that I've ever taken anything resembling a beating in public. And I think I said out loud... "ahh fuck it." And then I just pulverized this poor little guy.
I put it on him pretty bad. I just couldn't believe he had the stones to confront me like that... I had to give him a beating for my mental health.
College was good times.
Posted at 9:39PM on Aug 16th 2007 by Matt Masterson
19. Quite honestly, Mark, I believe you were entitled to the sucker punch. Not for laughing at the guy, but for beinin a mall in the first place. What the hell's the matter with you?! ;-)
Posted at 10:10PM on Aug 16th 2007 by Natron
20. Hey Mark, I dont really remember the last time but I do remember how long it seems to last,epending on how well you are doing and how the next day you feel like , hmmm, not to bad. It must be like the genetic cave man thing that surfaces from time to time in people. It really gives a person a different perspective for guys you see in the square circle for three minutes at a time,when they are getting pounded or doing the pounding. I hear people say" I could go three minutes with so and so" Not in your life pal. Its still fun to hear though occasionally. Thanks for the thoughts
Posted at 10:11PM on Aug 16th 2007 by Frankie from Lawnside
1. MC: I was doing battle with some Cow from the UK on a wanky social network and my good friend came up with the following to describe her! To this day, when I think about exchange, I get absolutely hysterical with laughter. I was at DaSilvano with friends and spouse and the incident came to mind. I had to leave the table and go outside a spent about 5 minutes laughing hysterically alone, witnesses started laughing at my laughter. I composed myself and came back in and when I tried to explain my behaviour, I started to laugh again! My last cyber fight!
Thread:
Ready to open up shop!
here are some of our favorite dishes...
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Served on a bun, this
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2 - Step Terrier 8.50
Step 1, We hit, Step 2, You eat it.
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A hairy little treat with
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4. Chihuahua Chili 7.95
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Enjoy!
Posted at 10:39AM on Aug 16th 2007 by Mary Clemente