Sidelines
IN the current culture it is macho to hug, so extreme fighters embrace often. There is noise when their palms meet, when two of them come together, that distinct pack! of an air pocket being trapped in a perfect handshake. The left hand comes over to cover the others. That kind of handshake. In the ring they fight each other, but here they are brothers. It is a close-knit, small, insulated, little understood fraternity. These are men who get kicked in the head for money. Super Brawl: Fighting
for the fun of itThis is not the cartoon that the TV commercials and press releases make it out to be. These men are uncles and fathers and husbands and sons. The promotion for the pre-fight press conference all but promised a riot of Springeresque proportions. Vince McMahon would be proud. But at the weigh-in the night before the brawls, the group sat quietly in a campfire circle in an oil wrestling bar. They calmly discussed the rules, every one of them sitting there serenely, and doctors conducted physicals in the dark.
The next day, last night, the men stake out the ring, casing the place like a criminal on the make. It is warm-up time, and they share the same faraway look that all men have before they go into battle. Music pounds over the Blaisdell Arena speakers. Super Brawl draws near.
But they know nothing when it comes to nerves. They don't tingle as much as the Laptop Warrior, who fights an 8 p.m. deadline with a 7:30 start. And things are running late.
And then you realize that press row is directly in front of the courtesy tickets left by the fighters. When these people charge the ring (as seen on TV) they are coming over me.
ALL GOES DARK. Spotlights dance. Thunder rolls and the first fighter makes a long, dramatic big-screen video entrance, a la Clinton's last dance.
Ring girls. Ring girls. Ring girls.
And we're on!
A head lock, and a knee lock, and the local favorite is on the bottom, and if the wrong kind of music were playing right now, I would feel very, very, very funny about things.
Punches are rocketing, and punches are landing, and the crowd erupts. Tattoos are flying everywhere, ladies and gentlemen!
Three straight shots in the ear to a downed opponent and the welts are rising like dough.
Our man rises at the break to go to his corner, a slight smile tugging at the edge of his lips, the same smile that he had before the fight started.
Now a dramatic turn, and he's got the man down, and he's whaling on his face with the kind of vicious violence that you never saw behind the school gym. And now neither cries nor blood will stop it.
In Super Brawl, you can kick a man when he's down.
The official ring announcer yells, "Who wants it? Who wants it?"
More swings, more knocks, more blood.
At the end, of course, they hug. They smile. They hug again. Our man is a hero.
But deadline looms. And the brawls continue.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com