I guess I'm a little late, but it's worth it for the quality. I've been taught too well, by my father, to be anything like him and my papa, so I've only gotten in one dull fight (in 7th grade I was like the 3rd smallest boy in the school and some bigger, physically fit kid, suckerpunched me, kneed me in the groin (thank goodness he did, it saved me face), and hip tossed me like a rag doll). My Papa and father, on the other hand, raised hell on a weekly basis. I'll try to tell them as good as possible. If there is any rule to how long a post can be, please inform me; I'll delete me comment which is almost certainly going to exceed it, by an obnoxious amount.
I'll start with my papa's 2 finest stories. He and his slightly younger brother (he had another, but the third was too young to hang with them, when they went off starting trouble), were in a bar, up in North carolina. This was probably around the early to mid 70s. My papa and his brother (who we'll call "John") were with 4 friends. This was a small town and they were from new york. I can't remember why they were there, but it was 9 o'clock and John was stirring up trouble with some younger girl working as a waitress. I guess he took it too far and a bouncer came to take him out. John played it down with a smile on his face like everything was all good, but the bouncer just kept insisting and eventually laid hands on john. Now john was about my size, but slightly taller and much heavier (probably about 5'9 and 180 something lbs with my papa being about 6 foot and a little over 200lbs), while this bouncer was about 250lbs at 6'2. John got real serious and told the bouncer that he needed to step back. The bouncer insisted and john shoved him hard. Papa was paying attention now, but hadn't revealed that he was with John. The bouncer had slipped up a bit on the slick hardwood floor and let go of John when he was pushed. The bouncer began to walk John down as John backed up and circled around the bar. From what my papa said, John was probably planning to wait for the bouncer to rush foreward so he could make him run into one good one. John never backed down from a fight, but he didn't get the chance to fight the bouncer, after John led the bouncer by papa who blindsided him. The bouncer froze, slumped straight foreward, and landed flat on his face. I've never heard of a bar bouncer losing a fight. So what happens when a bar loses it's bouncer(s)? In the case of this bar, the locals were so closely knit that about 8 or so people started coming at John. Chaos erupted. Glass was breaking, people from all sides were shouting and taking potshots at John, and Papa's friends helped pull john back and back him up. They were crowded out the front door and that's when the "riot" occurred. Two or three tough guys decided to do more than just escort them out of the bar and told them they had to wait for the cops. Papa and 2 others just blew them off and loaded into the car quick, but when one of the locals got in front of the car, John (of course) started things up again. John charged at the guy and made him back off, but a bigger man (my papa said about 6'4, flat top, amish type of beard, football player kind of build) bowed up in front of him. "Woah man", he said with a kinda scottish accent, "you need to be". John cut him off with a quick series of lefts and rights (all pretty much directly upward, due to the size difference) . The big man was backed up because John threw everything into his punches. He wasn't very cordinated, but he was extremely fast, strong, and had great stanima. People started pouring out of the bar and the whole thing turned into a massive melee. The fight was wild, some guy cornered one of papas friends in the shotgun seat and accidentally set off the airbag, another of papas friends knocked one of the locals out with "the most ungodly suplex I'd ever seen", and papa himself said he’d knocked 2 of them down and "had one of them on roller skates" when he noticed that the big guy and John had been undisturbed and the bigger man was atop John. Now John was writhing enough to keep the bigger guy from actually getting to throw anything, but papa still wanted to take the opportunity to drill the big guy in the side of his head, finally chopping down the giant. John sprung up and leaped onto him, in 2 fluent movements, before bloodying him up good. They ended up getting charged with "starting a riot" and some other things, but never served any real time.
The next story is of John fighting 2 football linemen in the same day. This was in his 3rd year of high school. Papa had started trouble, alone, at some party, the previous night, and got jumped. I mean not just jumped, he got stomped pretty badly by these two guys. The next day, John persuaded papa to point them out to him. The first guy they found in the school parking lot before school. John sprinted at this guy. The guy tried to throw, but missed his first punch and was single legged by John (John had no experience in sports, he just did it from common sense). The guy rolled over onto his stomach, but before he could stand up, John just started stomping this guys head. The guy covered up and John threw a few soccer kicks before running to gym (his first class). They already knew to find the 2nd guy behind the cafeteria (he was a senior with a tough guy rep himself. The guy was built like a brick house.). They guy had obviously been told that John was looking for him because he spotted John before John could get the jump on him... He was going to have to take this guy head on. He had 3 people with him, but they did nothing to stop Johns progression, they weren't really his friends, but he was just someone that elevated your social status to be around. The fight was a drag out brawl to say the least. John decided to stick him and then drop down and hop back. He did that twice and hit the guy with a good overhand on the lip the 2nd time, but it hardly fazed him. John decided to move to the side on his next, because he knew he was going to get figured out, but that didn't work out. The big man leaped forward and grazed him with a right hand to the side of his head. John staggered back into a brick wall and big man followed him up with combinations of haymakers, as John tried his best to cover up and bob rapidly. John quickly saw an opening and slipped away from the wall. The big fella stalked John, taunting him, trying to get John to roll the dice again. John faked with a left and dove in with a straight right hand. He connected hard with the right, directly above the guys left eye and the big man froze up, just for a split second. John bear hugged him and forced him back just a little. The big guy put his right foot back, to get better balance and maybe by luck, maybe by Johns quick wit, the guy was at just the right position to where he stepped off a curb and rolled his ankle. John followed him down and beat the guy into the ground. A fair sized cut, opened by the straight right to the eye earlier, was now opened into a massive gash the ended up requiring a staggering 83 stitches. The two families settled out of court on the expenses and, although the big guy supposedly claimed he wanted a rematch, he never came at John or papa again.
My dad (who was 6 foot and 200+ lbs in his youth) has quite a few interesting stories, but he never goes into detail. So I have about 5 of these, but they're brief. He talked about the longest fight he ever got into; a 2 minute brawl with a slightly bigger guy that ended with some people breaking it up, because neither of them could ko the other. My dad threw the first shot and got him in a head lock while throwing right hands to the guys face. The guy managed to do a sloppy suplex and ended up on top of my dad. My dad wrapped him up pretty well and and occasionally tried to buck him off, but neither of them could do anything significant. People stood them back up and they went toe to toe for like 20 seconds and everyone watching went nuts, but then the guy dropped down and tried to shoot. My dad sprawled and the guy switched to what you'd probably classify as a muay tai clinch (but grabbing onto the back of my dads shirt). My dad hit the guy behind the ear two good times, before the guy tried to sling my dad over his leg. My dad about caught himself but the hardwood floor strikes again as my dad slipped and the guy landed atop him once more. They just kinda grappled for about half a minute before the fight was finally broken up for good. My dad said they both wanted to go at it again, but people from both sides just told the to calm down. My dad was quite handy pretty much his entire life, but he still lost his first fight. It was his freshmen year at jr. high and up until this point he'd been in private schools. Some taller kid had been starting problems with him and class and now they'd just happened to encounter eachother in the bathroom. Taller guy said, "what's up now boy?" and my father told him to go ahead and take the first swing. The kid swung wide and it was on. Now the thing is, my dad's friend chad had moved up from his private school and they were watching out for eachother, since nobody else would really associate with them. Well what does he do to help my dad out? He trys to pull my dad away from the other kid, telling him,"It's not worth it, man. It's not worth it". Well the problem was 1. There was no teachers so he wasn't going to get in trouble 2. he was holding my dad back by his arms and 3. the other guy wasn't going to be polite and stop fighting while he held my dads arms back. My dad was pretty angry afterwards, but the two remain friends to this day. Next we have his quick knockout of a rowdy stoner looking guy. First guy started hitting on my dads girlfriend and didn’t show any signs of letting up when she stated she wasn’t alone. My dad asked him to “come see him real quick” outside. The guy strided on out there and as soon as they are both face to face my father cracks him straight on the nose with his right hand. The guy instantly fell back and my dad jumped knees first onto his chest, before raining down some blows that left the guy really messed up. There was bloods all over the legs of his jeans, his hands ended up getting all bruised, he got some of it on his shirt too. It was just a huge mess. This was my dads last real street fight. He said he really wasn’t proud of it or anything he’d been doing lately and after this he started to distance himself from the life he was leading and the people he was around. He was 23. This last fight I’ll mention was a brief encounter between him (accompanied by two friends) and some hog headed guy in a deftones t shirt (accompanied by a balding fat guy in a track suit). My father was in a south carolina bar when one of his friends got into a verbal altercation with a fat balding guy in a tracksuit over how loud and obnoxious he was being ( the friend was fully shitfaced and making my dad and his other friend go into fits of laughter with his stupid over exaggerations). My father just told the guy to screw off, but his drunk friend took it a step further. “Man, this guy wants me to step off, the only thing he needs to be stepping on is a scale.” The joke was poorly put together, but my dad was dying and his other friend spit out a mouthful of beer. Drunk friend stepped up to him, “Hey, why are you wearing a tracksuit, anyway? You look like you haven’t jogged since ilio diplaolo made his first batch of f***ing sauce.” The guy piefaced drunk friend and, right as drunk friend went to shove the guy back, the big dude in the deftones shirt shoves him so hard that he falls back into the leg of my fathers stool. Drunk friend hit the back of his head pretty hard and struggles to get up, but my father had a high alcohol tolerance and his other friend had only gone through 5 or 6 beers so he was fresh too. My father ran in on the big dude first and his other friend followed him up. Drunk friend started brawling with the track suit guy, while my father and the other whaled on the deftones guy. The only interesting thing about this fight was the deftones guy’s durability. My father said, he drilled the guy like 8 times, with his right hand, yet the guy hardly even flinched. His friend got him a few times with his left (his dominant hand) "like he was throwing a ball from outfield to home plate” yet got the same result. “It was like punching a stump." The bartenders told them they’d called the police and the whole lot of them went their separate ways. I have many more stories of both men, if you like this kinda stuff like I do. Supposedly I’m just scraping the surface of the stuff John and papa used to do and all of my dads friends insist that he’s holding out on me too. It sounds like things were so much more interesting back before laws against fighting became so strictly enforced. Shame.
