Fights in Sports: Comedy Open Mic #21

Violence and sport go hand in hand. Heavily trained athletes put their bodies and pride on the line to perform in high stake arenas, emotions run high, and frustrations spill over into what has humorously been called extra-curricular activity.

a classic sports brawl from Imgur

Interestingly, each sport develops its own particular style of fighting. I may be no expert, since I’ve never been allowed on a team for long, but I intend to examine those styles in hopes of illuminating the rich tapestry that is athletic competition.

SOCCER. Or as most of you outside the United States know it: Football. To be honest, I do not watch enough of this sport to grasp the full character of a football fight. It appears that most confrontations end when one or many players fall dramatically, usually without having been touched, and writhe on the ground like fish until a yellow or red card is displayed and play resumes. This is reminiscent of political protests, or sibling rivalry, where groups provoke one another into madness in various ways, and then tattle to a parent or other higher authority to gain some kind of advantage.

AMERICAN FOOTBALL: in a grinding and brutal game where the largest men on Earth land heavily upon one another repeatedly, you might expect more fighting. Mostly, however, head concussions, the banning of locker room towel snapping, and cheerleaders wearing less fabric than the average NFL jockstrap keep these fellows tame. While the brawl is a typical style when things go down, most extra-curricular violence in the modern game is limited to late hits, sideline conflicts with coaching staff, and spousal abuse.

BASKETBALL: A frustrating and technical sport where the tallest men on earth bump and grind up and down a hardwood gymnasium. I want to fight someone right now just thinking about it. Since the 1980’s, however, basketball seems to have reigned in the most obnoxious and aggressive players by allowing them eight to ten sexual partners a day. It is rare in the modern era to see an entire team bench lunge into the stands like a Lord of the Rings cavalry charge to take on the first thirty rows of a spitting and drink throwing opponent fan mob.

CHESS: Not classically considered a sport, I add chess because I once put a nine year old in a headlock after losing to him in sixteen moves. But that is a personal story and not typical of chess.

HOCKEY: In a sport where players carry curved sticks and wear razor blades on their feet, an outright brawl could become too dangerous. Therefore, in a unique twist, hockey allows two grown men to square off, shed gloves, and fist fight until they collapse together like a pair of exhausted lovers. They do this without interference from officials or teammates. It’ll cost you two minutes in timeout and some teeth, but it is a small price to pay to keep the talent alive. It also sates the bloodlust of the drunken and seething animals in the audience.

BOXING: This sport is a fight already. However, a boxer has two options when he has had enough: bite off your opponent’s ear or punch him in the scrotum.

BASEBALL: The bench clearing brawl is the standard. Hundreds of players and coaches converge in the infield and dance together in a poetic swirl reminiscent of The Nutcracker Ballet. Men from many cultures move in and out of the swarm, like notes in a fine piece of classical piano music, and call one another sonsofbitches, until order is restored and the performance enhancing substances are re-administered. The baseball brawl is a metaphor for the natural process of tension and release, and no one really gets hurt except the batter who took the fastball to the ribs that triggered the fight in the first place.

Just to be clear, that nine year old laughed at me after winning that game of chess. The little shit had that headlock coming. And he would have gotten more if his mother hadn’t intervened and landed a solid blow to my scrotum. There aren’t many champions out there who can withstand that.

Ah, well. That is life. And that is an overview of fighting styles in sports. I nominate @theregularguy and/or @jimshorts to lend their combined expertise in this field, tell me where I went wrong, and enter a piece for the Comedy Open Mic judge’s consideration.

Thank you.