CagePotato Roundtable #9: What Was the Most Memorable Fight You’ve Ever Been In?

For our first crowd-sourced CagePotato Roundtable, we asked you to give us your wildest fight memories, and damn did you people deliver. Our tip-line was flooded with dozens of hilarious, horrifying, obviously exaggerated tales. In the interest of brevity, we cherry-picked the 12 best submissions for today’s column, which you can read below, including a gem from CageWriter‘s own Maggie Hendricks, and a heart-warming story of asshole-comeuppance from the amateur MMA circuit. But first, one that’s near and dear to my heart…

RollsRoyceGracie writes:

This was back in 1988, when I was a senior in college, in Boston. It was late and I was a little drunk, but my biggest problem was the horrible Chinese food I had for dinner earlier that was trying to make its way down the pipeline and into my drawers. I was walking in a mostly residential neighborhood, having failed to score with my date, and I was looking for a McDonalds or a gas station, but I was getting ready to settle for a dark corner behind someone’s garage. [Ed. note: Been there, bro. Been there.]

As luck would have it, two local dropouts spotted me and innately sensed my vulnerability. They hustled over to my side of the street, but I decided to keep walking and ignore them. They didn’t like being ignored. I remember them calling me “Cock” – “Hey cock, where ya headed?” “Hey cock, why ya lookin’ so sour?” I foolishly insulted them by blurting out that I didn’t have any money. “Ya think we’re gonna rob ya, cock? We’re just lookin’ for some sport.” And with that, the smaller one, a skinny kid maybe 40 pounds lighter than me (because I let myself get fat in college), punched me in the stomach. I shit myself on the spot. Loudly.

They heard it and immediately broke down laughing. The little one even fell on the ground he was laughing so hard. But I was enraged. Strangely, my gut felt a lot better all the sudden, and I felt this savageness descend over me. I figured I had nothing to lose, having just crapped my pants, so I attacked. Luckily, the bigger kid, who was probably a few inches taller and a lot more muscular than me, was doubled over right in front of me. I gave him two quick, hard shots to the temple and he crumpled, out cold.

The little guy came around in a flash after seeing his buddy go down, and he had a wiry speed that I couldn’t match. He bloodied my nose, and then he got a little too cocky. He stepped in close for another gut buster and I grabbed him. It may have been the rage or it may have been all the wrestling we did in the dorms, but I had him locked up and he couldn’t get away. I tripped him and fell on top of him, which knocked the wind out of him. I rose up into what I now know is a full mount and battered his face until he stopped trying to stop me. I stood up and kicked his ribs because I was pissed, and then I half walked, half jogged to my dorm a few miles away, trying desperately not to be seen (or smelled) on my way into my room.

Maggie Hendricks writes:

I was in sixth grade and squabbling with a seventh-grade boy over him being in the way when my cheerleading squad was supposed to practice. We had competition in a few days, and I was SUPER SERIOUS about cheerleading. He said, “Whatever, your team sucks,” and I immediately threw a right cross. (My grandfather was a boxer and taught me jabs, crosses and hooks when I was six to use on any “boys who need to be punched.”) It hit him directly in the eye, and I’m pretty sure he fell to the floor. I did get called to the principal’s office and I think I had to apologize, but my mom took me for ice cream afterwards. She was proud of me for standing up for my team, even if we didn’t do so well at competition.

So I guess it wasn’t a fight, since he didn’t punch back, but damn it felt good.

Tyler Hill writes:

First off the most impressive thing about this story is the video evidence (which is not ultra shit quality). Search “Tyler Hill Vs. Justin Marshall” and see that, even though there is a complicated story behind this, people want to see that knockout. It would easily be top 3 of your “Falling Tree Knockouts“. My shin left him being carted out on a gurney. I will continue with the story after it but please give the video a chance and see that its not any less than I claimed….

Story: I’m 20 years old from Memphis, TN. Name is Tyler “Zombie” Hill. Think of me as a Cody Mckenzie type of dude except I have a Palhares like obsession with legs. But I like to kick people with mine. I’m 8-1-1 as an ammy at 170/155 @ 6’4″ (I know, no one cares). This particular fight was scheduled and I had my opponent change 7 times over 2 weight classes. My final opponent just straight didn’t show for weigh ins. I had hundreds of people coming so after a very aggravated discussion with the matchmaker I told him I didn’t care who they got. They were talking about some pro boxer. I said fine, whatever.

The date is what made this story special to me. October 9, 2011. It was exactly one year after I lost my great grandmother, who raised me. I had spent the last year in fury trying to follow up on a promise I made her in our last conversation that I would never quit and fight with everything I had no matter what the circumstances. And 1 year after her death, here we go, I face this situation. So they got this guy who was a boxer, supposedly a pretty good one. When he showed up the night of the fight after being allowed to weigh in at whatever the hell he wanted, he was looking for his opponent and they pointed me out and he laughed, put his hand over his mouth and said, quote: “I’m bout to show y’all MMA people what a real knockout is. How a boxer do it.” I smiled at him and said nothing. The fighters that knew me that shared his lockeroom told him that he better be weary of my kicks. He said something to the effect of he didn’t need to check my kicks because he was going to knock me out. The video should explain from there. You only have to watch 25 seconds of the actual fight before it happens. I was later told I collapsed his trachea and he was unresponsive well after they carted him out.

I’ve been a avid reader of CagePotato for some years. I’ve wanted to get this video to you to see if you might honor me in displaying it somehow. I know it is unrealistic to believe that this will impress you guys, being I am a mere amateur. But hey if I can’t dream, what can I do?

Nate LaVelle writes:

I was hanging out at a hippy coffee house waiting for a friend to show so we could go roast a fatty. I went outside to show off a Highlander replica sword I bought and had in my car trunk when a group of 4 guys and 2 girls gets kicked out of a trashy bar across the street. One of the hippies starts yelling something about her car to the drunks who see me holding a fucking sword (in the sheath, it wasn’t real, hence replica) and rush me. I got BLASTED on the right temple and swarmed. I had zero chance to do any damage and in the scuffle one of the drunks took the God damned sword so I just waited to be stabbed by it, thinking FUCK I had a sword, I should have used it. They beat the hell out of me for about two minutes while the fucking dumb hippies watched and did nothing. I had a concussion, bruised ribs, cuts, a bruise on my shoulder with a perfect boot print, etc. The best shot landed was the one drunk girl booting me right in the face. I opened my eyes just as it was about to land, and watched it connect in slow motion. After that fight I realized, if I can take that, a one-on-one match up was nothing.

Deadpanda writes:

I got invited to a B-day party (40-60 people) in Hawthorne (safe(r) part of South Central Los Angeles) by a couple friends of mine. We all get pretty drunk & we maybe drink a little more of the host’s booze than we contributed, so there were some people at the party who were not happy with us. Needless to say, I was very drunk & stumbling around when someone thought it would be fun to put on some 6oz gloves & do some backyard boxing. I happily agree to be the first one to step up to the ‘ring’ and I got the distinct impression that they really meant to teach me a lesson for drinking too much. But they didn’t know, and I failed to mention, that I had been sparring with Malaipet for the last 3 & 1/2 years & am a decent Muay Thai practitioner.

So some prefight talk happens & it’s made clear that I’m not liked there. So the fight starts & then ends abruptly when I knock my opponent out with my opening right cross… This is a good time to mention that I’m the only white guy at the party & I just KO’d one of the host’s best friends. Still stumbling around & not fully aware of what had just happened I was promptly given a 2nd opponent to kick my ass. While my first opponent was much my size (6′, 190-200 lbs.) the second guy was very much not my size at 6’5″, 280-300 lbs. So at this point I realize that I’m about to get my ass kicked if I don’t pull my shit together (mind you I have about a .020 BAC) and pull something off. So the fight starts and using my drunken genius, I open by throwing a very slow, very sloppy, right hook/windmill that sails past his head like I was too drunk & just flat out missed. To sum it up, the right hook was a faint to set up a spinning left back fist that I landed with quite a bit of authority & follow through. The back fist caught him flush on the jaw line & put him out harder than the 1st guy; again, it was the first punch I threw.

It was then kindly suggested by one of the girls that I should leave the party (quickly) & my friends drove me home.

Jake Nuesser writes:

Before starting Fight Chix with my wife Elisabeth, I was just another designer/martial artist who also spent evenings bouncing at a local bar. Well, Christmas night fell on half price Sunday, and since it was a holiday, we didn’t have a full staff on that evening. Our resident DJ, Jeremy was drinking heavily in his off time, and had a police grade spotlight that he decided to shine on other unsuspecting patrons. His target this evening was a rather large bodybuilder type of dude in a powder blue sweater. An obvious target I suppose.

At one point Jeremy zeroed in the spot light on our Powder Blue titan and followed him the length of the dance floor. He clearly wasn’t in the festive mood, and he almost ran all the way to the DJ booth to have a few words with Jeremy. I jumped off the stage and got close enough to the situation in case something might go down — but I was confident that Jeremy wouldn’t start a fight in the bar he works at — on Christmas of all days! I was wrong. Powder Blue asked him “why the fuck do you keep shining that light on me” to which Jeremy, who is built more like a defensive lineman than a DJ, climbed out of the DJ booth and relied “Why don’t you hit me pussy” Clearly this answer-a-question-with-a-question conversation wasn’t what Powder Blue was interested in — and he pushes Jeremy.

At this point I spring to action, and get an over under grip on the guy before being pushed to the ground by one of his friends. Mind you, as a bouncer, I’m not really supposed to hit anyone. I DE-escalate and control the situation. Well the situation at this point is being on the bottom with Powder Blue taking swings at me like Mark Coleman. Lucky for me, my guard was good and his arms were short. I worked to my feet and Jeremy and I escorted Powder Blue out the back door, over a railing and into a fresh pile of Christmas snow — but before we bid him farewell, Jeremy looked out and said “Merry Fucking Christmas” and the door was slammed shut. God Bless us — everyone.

Angry Little Feet writes:

Way back in grade school there was a boy named Johnny. He was very big for his age while I was very small. Johnny tormented me terribly. He pulled my hair and made me cry. He picked me up and dumped me into a waste basket then fastened the lid and left me there. He even stabbed me with a pencil once. One day in gym class our teacher was called away for a few minutes and of course Johnny made his move. As always he started pushing me and pulling my hair. I suppose he didn’t expect I would push him back because when I did he fell right back onto his rump. That’s when I started to kick him. These angry little feet were still stomping him and kicking at his face when our teacher returned and dragged me off of him.

I tell you this not because I am proud of it — but more as a public service to my fellow Taters. Please remember that even the smallest and most harmless-looking creature when backed into a corner is more than capable of going completely apeshit on your ass.

I sometimes wonder what ever became of Johnny. Nah — not really. I don’t give a fuck what happened to him.

Smellypiratehooker writes:

I’m not exactly sure which one of my fights would be the most memorable so I’m just gonna go with the last one cause it’s the most fresh in my mind and it’s got a happy ending (at least for me).

I was down at the local pool hall with a buddy of mine (Kaboom82) pounding beers and pretty much keeping to ourselves playing pool when a mutual aquintance of ours came up and wanted to play doubles. I personally hadn’t seen the guy for awhile and as much as I didn’t really feel like playing doubles against him and his brother, I thought that it would be a kind of dick move to say no so we both agreed.

Now one thing you have to realize is that when either one of us are playing pool against someone (especially when money is involved) there is a certain amount of respect that you should have when someone is taking a shot. So it comes to Kaboom’s turn and one of the brothers is tapping his stick just loud enough to be purposfully annoying. In response, Kaboom tells him to quit tapping his stick on the table. The other brother catches wind of the minor confrontation and takes it upon himself to totally blow it out of proportion. He starts to pick a fight with Kaboom and when I go over to basically defend my buddy, he takes his cue stick and jabs me with it. At that point I’m a race car in the red, and Kaboom is ready to explode (pun intended).

The chicks working the bar come rushing down and pretty much kicked them out and let us stay cause they saw what went on and are friends of ours. In no way did I think that was the end of it and not to my surprise they were waiting outside for us to come out and pick up where we left off. We went up to the bar, took a shot of whiskey and made our way outside to the two brothers that we were playing pool with and the other one that happened to be kicking around up at the bar when this went down. We stepped outside at the entrance to the two brothers shooting off and in the middle of the arguing, one of the brothers that we were playing pool with swung at Kaboom followed by the other brother we were playing with. Both of us started launching back when out of the corner of my eye, the third brother was coming in on my side.

That’s when things went black. I was told later that it was one of the more savage fights that one of the spectators had seen. I grabbed a hold of the brother and Don Frye‘d the guy until it hit the ground and wrapped him up in a schoolyard headlock. People came rushing over and asked me to “let him go, he had enough.” I got up and what was once my white Coors Light shirt was a blood red version of its former self. I let out a battle cry of “I’m ready for round two” and looked over to see his other brother’s jaw dropped and my buddy grinning like the cheshire cat.

I then saw the guy’s girlfriend who I just got finished lighting up and was expecting to get chewed out or even smacked when (and this is the best part) for some reason that I still can’t quite understand, she tuned him out for being an idiot as he was clutching his broken nose trying to figure out where it all went wrong. I knew at that point that the cops were gonna be called and there was no way I was walking home looking like a gunshot victim. So we called a cab and chalked this one as one of the times we were the heros.

Randy G. writes:

My name is Randy Giroux I am 42 years old. A couple of years back my wife and I went to a Shinedown concert here in New Hampshire. It was a general admission concert so we got there early so my wife could be up real close to the stage. First band came on and everything went well then Shinedown came out. During the first song a group of guys started moshing thus bumping into my wife and myself. At this time I was getting pissed, but my wife was getting nervous so she told me let’s just move. I thought to myself no, why should we move when we really wanted to be close to the stage. So as the moshing continued I said to one of the moshers to knock it off, to no avail. It was building up inside of me. Then a girl was trying to get out away from the pit when she was slammed to the floor right in front of me. I lost it!

Now, I studied martial arts for about 10 years and always considered myself able to handle myself. That being said, I hauled off and right crossed him right to the side of his face. After the punch the guy catches his footing and starts coming at me. I think hey, I will roundhouse kick him, but I can’t cause with the crowd and the female on the floor I actually had to step over her first not allowing enough time to kick. At this point I go into fighting mode, left punch, right punch, left punch, right punch, etc. connecting multiple times to his face before he goes flat out cold. During the time I was hitting him, I felt a punch luckily graze my right cheek so after the guy went down I immediately turn my attention to the guy on my right, panic mode now kicking in. I start out, left punch, right punch, left punch, right punch, etc, then he goes down and out.

At this point I turn back to look to my left when bang a freight train hits me right in the nose. After coming to, I must have looked like the Incredible Hulk cause I remember being in the middle of this open pit screaming “come on I will take you all on every one of you!” at which at this point everyone grabbed me and the other guys and put this show to rest. Moral of the story is if you are going to take a swing at someone make sure his two buddies are not with him.

Chris “Viva Hate” Morse writes:

So this one time I woke up late for school and seriously I did not want to go, I asked my mom please and she still insisted “No!” I missed my first two classes and arrived with no homework just to listen to my teacher preach class like some kind of jerk. I get home and my pops caught me smoking to which he said “no way!” I pointed out that he was a hypocrite because he was smoking two packs a day. I finally realized that living at home was such a drag only to find my mom had thrown out my best porno mags. My parents further insisted I not step out of the house if this was the clothes I was going to wear and that they would kick me out if I did not cut my hair. I lay in my room when my mom busted and said “what’s that noise?” I pointed out her jealousy because it was the Beastie Boys. I had to fight for my right to party.