Welcome to Tuesday Night Fights, a weekly celebration and analysis of street-fight videos found on YouTube. Tonight's fisticuffs: the aptly named, "Street Fight." Tonight's commentator: Deadspin commenter and degenerate boxing fan Iron Mike Gallego. (Coming next week: a roller derby powerhouse examines a lady fight sans skates or protection.)
Street fights are invariably more exciting than even the most action-packed professional fight, precisely because the combatants lack the gifts shared by top-level boxers.
When both men bring to the table zero technique, a complete lack of defensive skills, and a jaw that could be reduced to sand with a single punch, you’re always a split second away from something dramatic. Well, assuming neither man is Ricky Hatton, anyway.
That lack of predictability is what makes street fights so compelling. It’s the same reason many of my fellow Angelenos actually pay for subscriptions that page them whenever there is a car chase on TV: when life begins to operate outside of all rules and societal expectations, it is invariably fascinating.
That brings us to this scrap, which totally makes a mockery of everything I just said.
You can tell within seconds that not a single punch will land.
Instead, you — along with bro there in the red "YOLO" shirt — get to watch a timid shirtless guy with a Justin Bieber physique get repeatedly wrestled to the ground by a disinterested opponent who spends more time ineffectively smack talking than he does ineffectively punching, all before a gawking audience of junior high kids with camera phones.
Contrary to popular belief, fights do not need knockouts or even a lot of contact to be compelling. The highest paid fighter in the world of sport, Floyd Mayweather, manages to bring tension and drama to his fights simply by virtue of being intensely unlikeable. Even as he slips punches with ease and generally makes his opponents look foolish, you at least know there’s a possibility that he might accidentally break his own hand on a poorly aimed punch, as he did against Carlos “Famoso” Hernandez in a moment that produced the only knockdown in Mayweather’s career.
But that doesn’t happen here.
Really, the only thing that could bring drama to this fight would be a confused 80-year-old in a Mercury careening through it, sending the two opponents flying into a passing gasoline tanker, causing it to veer into a nearby fireworks factory, where the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are attending a New Edition reunion concert.
Oh, and one guy has his cell phone broken when the shirtless guy flees directly into him. That’s kinda funny.
• I mean, I just don't even know what to write about this morality tale with fashion-sense underpinnings. (Start of Violence, 2:43)
• Live, from a McDonald's in Toronto, a fight which "started by the white girl throwing a hamburger at the black girls face." Worldstar, woowoowoowoo. (SoV, instantly)
• When street fights are worth jumping out of your car for, you do so. Even if you're driving. Or so thought this guy here in a silver ride sans part of his back bumper. (SoV, 0:35)
• Some JV Eastern European gang-fight aspirants got their scrap on in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. It was a land known to the Romans as Philippopolis. It is a land known to fashionistas as the ass-ripped jeans capital of the world. (SoV, instantly)
• Da Fight from Vancouver, Wash. Intermission Report:
• What's this thing called, a concrete ravine? Well whatever it is is makes this San Antonio brawl take on a vaguely menacing vibe from the get go even if it seems, at times, because of the downward angle, like a spat between Webster and Tattoo. (SoV, 1:08)
• DMV beatdown! (SoV, instantly)
• White-on-white crime. smdh. (SoV, instantly)
• "Tattood wanna-be bikie" vs. old man. Who ya got? (SoV, instantly)
• The Fresno Live Look-In:
• Shit got real in the Nettleton High School parking lot the other day after football. Go Raiders. (SoV, instantly)
• This is what it looks like when Irish bar fights involving Austrian gangs take on Russian-field battle sensibilities. (SoV, 0:48)
• Location: 45th Park. Date: Thursday. (SoV, instantly)
• Take a look at this dude's face after a LARGE BAR BRAWL WITH INJURIES in San Diego. (SoV, well, it's afterwards, but still)
• TNF Commenter MPF1111's Crazy Rumble Submission:
• From the America-birthing 215 area code: A Philly Ladybrawl In Which Messages Are Delivered And Lessons Are Learned (SoV, instantly). Bonus Coverage: "North Philly Fight of the Year" (SoV, instantly).
• TNF Beijing Correspondent Anthony Tao presents "Suspected Mistress In Lanzhou Stripped And Beaten In Public" (SoV, instantly).
• Have we seen this Huntington Beach WorldStar action before? Not sure. (SoV, 0:22)
• Postcards from Nicaragua:
• In which a Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico street battle was caught on film. (SoV, instantly)
• Oh, those crazy Russians. (SoV, instantly)
• Others: "Bar fight on sunday morning." "two Crazy white girls fight over boys." "Lanier Brawl." "Flying Kicks Street Fight." "Brawl in the BX PT. 1." "Down South Brawl." "Man Says Roommate Attacked Him With A Sword." "Chulas Bar Fight." "2 Mexican baseball teams fight (girl defends boyfriend)." "Beaumont fights." "Rez rollers get into a brawl (EPIC!!!)" "Officials Investigate / 7 Yr Old Girls Fight Video Posted Online By Sister." "Fight at the skating rink." "beatdown (Created with Magisto)." "Heavy weight champ Kayla vs Philly prodigy Sierra."
• The Non-Violent Rasslin' Chad "Diva Lover" McGhee Go-In-Peace Dance Coda (Start of Party, 2:15):