Two fights when I was a kid. Won them both, to my surprise. I was a skinny wimp back then, but it turned out that I have an explosive temper when provoked. The only part of the fights I remember was the other kid connecting with a first swing, then me on top of him with others pulling me off.
It’s amazing that I never had a fight as an adult, as I drank heavily in the military and got myself in some precarious situations.
I’ve been beaten unconscious, 2, 3 times.
Beaten & kicked in the nuts so bad there was blood in my urine.
This was when I was a kid.
Except for the time I got robbed, work a late-night convenience store.
Got some permanent neuro damage that reduces the use of my arm & leg, that time.
Am I completely misunderstanding something here?
That’s horrible. Where you working for another company? Or was it your own store, or families?
I’m 50+. A couple of months ago a drunk guy was hassling some women a couple blocks ahead of me. He grabbed a bag from them and then threw it back at them. I ran up and got between them. Some words, shoving, and he took a swing at me that barely connected. I got really mad and was about to get into a serious fight but some good samaritan broke it up. We called the police and had the guy arrested.
I had a classic shiner for a week or so.
Must have been his shirt pocket.
In December 1999 I was walking alone with no one else in sight except for 2 black guys stalking around wearing hooded sweatshirts. This neighborhood was not the place for that, trust me. I purposely walked right past them on the sidewalk just to let them know someone had seen them. They grabbed me from behind and I threw the best punch of my life breaking the nose of one of them. I broke free and ran into a back entrance of my apartment building and was on the phone with 911 in 90 seconds. They knew who I was talking about. They were both armed and dangerous recent parolees and the dispatcher unleashed the entire Boston area gang squad.
Two hours later at about 1 am, they called me about the arrest. The arresting officer looked like the white version of Shaquile O’Neil. He picked my up in the wee hours and I identified them successfully in a line-up. One plead guilty right away and went right back to three years maximum security. The other fought it and I had to meet with the Boston DA twice to prepare for trial. A private investigator and a lawyer showed up in my driveway 30 miles from Boston after we moved two years later and I had to do another photo lineup which I passed. The second one got five years for fighting it. It turns out they committed a whole string of crimes and I was the only one left willing to testify 
.
I am proud of that even though I could have been killed. I might have saved someone else’s life. They committed three other violent crimes after I called 911 and had a girl pinned to the floor with a knife to her throat when they were caught.
Are you confused about the pocket placement? I was wearing a cargo jacket and the quarters were in a pocket over my chest.
Somebody else’s store.
6 months on Workmen’s Comp.
I’m a professional bouncer/security guard. I’ve been doing this for nearly 10 years and, on average, have to physically break up a fight once a month and have to defend myself 1-4 times a year.
I’ve gotten a few cuts from glass and bottles, bruised by pool cues, a couple of cracked ribs on two occasions and broken bones in my hands 3 times.
I’ve been threatened with a knife a couple of times, a tire iron once (breaking up a fight out in the parking lot) and one sociopath tried to pull a gun on me back in '03.
I hate fighting and as an adult, have always tried to avoid it and defuse whatever situation I may wind up in.
Yeah, I’ve been in a lot of fights.
Back in elementary school, I used to be one of those kids who got picked on all the time… smaller than most others, socially awkward…
I never fought back, back then; I was too scared.
I think it was in 12th grade, this guy, from the “practical diploma” classes (12-4 level), jean jacket, greasy hair, thick glasses and all, wants to impress his buddies, and decides I’m an easy target. He walks into the locker room, cronies in tow, and throws (telegraphs?) a right hook at my face. I block with my right, spin him around by the shoulders, shove, and kick him in the ass.
Ooh, now he’s pissed! So what does he do? He throws the exact same punch, I block the exact same way, shove, kick…
He stands there, looking at me with the Eyes Of Death, then, while staring all the while, he walks (limps) around a row of lockers, then right back out of the locker room.
The closest thing to a fight that I’ve ever been in. That was about 17 years ago.
S^G
I was never a fighter - I was never enough of a threat to anyone. However, when I was 15/16 I got paired with a new guy at school. He had shifted school, probably because he was getting into trouble. I had to sit with him for biology and geography, help him settle in. We got on well enough, but he did try to dominate me physically - I tended to shrug such things off. One day, I was waiting outside class. The door opened, and I stepped in. Behind me, the new guy had stepped forward and aimed a kick at my behind. But my stepping forward made him miss, and he fell over in front of the teacher. His embarrassment made me a serious target, and after class he came looking for me. There was a bit of circling, a few punches thrown but no real connections, lots of kids around, but noone got hurt and it all blew over pretty quick.
However, at the end of last year, I was running a chocolate fountain at a wedding reception with my stepson (who was helping out while visiting from NZ). The people were really good (the groom was a squaddie, lots of his mates and plenty of ex-military types), but there was a bloke who talked loudly and aggressively and was pretty drunk. Towards the end of the evening he got up to leave, and looked for his wifes coat, which apparently had been on the table we were using for the fountain. So he assumed that I had done something with it. I hadn’t, and at that point (faced with a threatening, drunk, shouting bloke) I forgot that there was a coat rack by the main entrance. He threatened to tip the fountain, and then grabbed me by the throat. I was semi-evaluating the chances of punting his nads while trying to remain calm and talking him down when my stepson stepped up, the best man stepped up, and it was all defused - the coat was found on the coat rack and the wife was really apologetic. According to other guests, the bloke could be a bit of a nutter - hit first and ask questions later. I resisted the temptation to pack up there and then (chocolate fountains plus high spirited drunk lads = bad mix), but decided that I could not ruin the bride and grooms evening. So that is the closest I have been to a fight in 25 years since school.
Si
Lots. But then I had problems with my temper when I was younger. The last fight I was in required me to attend court ordered anger management therapy, but that was 17 years or so ago.
I’m pretty much a pacifist; I don’t hit, I push. As a senior in high school, I nearly pushed a fellow student over a stairwell railing.
I’ve had assholes try to pick fights with me but usally I don’t respond. Drives 'em crazy.
I got bullied a lot in school, but most of the time it didn’t come to actual blows. In sixth grade I was shoved around some, and at the end of the year another kid bit me (which got me kicked out for fighting, even though I hadn’t actually done anything). There was a very brief episode in 7th or 8th grade when a kid tried to show off how tough he was, but I think he was trying to use movie kung-fu moves that don’t actually work; the end result was me doing almost nothing and him basically landing himself flat on his butt on the floor. And in about 10th grade, I got jumped by three guys I’d never seen before walking home from school (I think they were probably eighth graders, which made them each a year or two older than me), and got beat up pretty bad, but a classmate passed by in a car at that moment and jumped out to help, at which point the thugs scattered.
Oh, and I sparred a bit in karate classes, but that doesn’t really count.
The last actual fight I got into was in third grade–a bully had been picking on me, and finally I just snapped and kicked her really hard in the shins one day while we were leaving class. She wiped the floor with me, of course, but it was worth it.
Since then I’ve stepped into fights to break them up, but not actually been part of one.
The only thing really resembling a fight I’ve been in was in 6th grade. A 5th grader* took offense at something (I can’t recall what) and wanted to fight. He ran at me, shoulder-first. I took one step to my right and pushed him down as he flew by me. He hit the pavement face down. IIRC, I went to go get on top of him, but other kids started breaking us up by then.
I went to the principle’s office with him, satisfied with my “victory.” I received nary a scratch and won via the rules of playground sumo.
*: I was the only male 6th grader in a class of three, and certainly not the biggest or strongest on the tiny campus. We shared a classroom with 30-odd 5th graders.
I fought pretty regularly until I got married in 2004. I kind of miss it a little. It’s kind of like getting wired, adrenaline pumping and whatnot. Watching ultimate fighting is excited as I get these days.
More than I care to admit.
If you count the ones that took place outside of a ring, still more than I care to count.
Of course, I’ve also worked as a bodyguard, bouncer, high-value courier and other similarly dangerous jobs, which accounts for about 98 percent of the real world fights. Many people who have never done it are suprised to discover the bodyguarding was the least dangerous and most boring of all those types of jobs.
I’ve only ever gotten in two bar / party fights as a regular customer, and in both of those I did everything I could to de-escalate the situation.
I’ve been the subject of four robbery/mugging attempts over the years and didn’t bother to even begin to comply. The outcomes were not what the robbers had been planning.
With the exception of one martial arts tournament fight, I’ve “won” every fight I’ve been in, but I’ve sustained some degree of damage in almost all of them, ranging from bruised hands to a concussion to broken ribs.
Fighting hurts. I prefer to avoid it. I’m 39, FWIW
I’ve been in one fight, total, and that one was very, very lame. In second grade, a classmate with an assortment of developmental issues decided, out of the blue, to bite me out on the playground. He had about a year on me, and he chomped my arm pretty good, too, as I recall. I responded by beating the ever-loving crap out of him. I got in trouble, of course, but Mom took my side against the Principal, whose principal argument was that I shouldn’t have struck the biter. I was not punished, but rather warned away from him; my parents assured me that should he decide to try for another nibble, that I would be within my rights to clean his clock again. He vanished from the roll the following year, never to be seen again.
Several school fights up into high school. Only once in my adult life did I almost get into a fight.
I owned a operated a movie theatre for a awhile in Oklahoma. It went out of business. A long miserable expierence. Well, at the end I held a little ‘garage’ sale and sold off what stuff I could and when that was over a few friends and I were in the lobby ‘having a party’. (a wake really) Anyway the marquee is turned off and on it is the word closed, when two guys come in (in their 20’s) and one asks me what is showing. Well, I just sort let out a laugh, not at him really but at the situation, and he punches me in the chest, really hard. I consider grabbing the baseball bat from behind the counter but instead I picked up the phone and dialed 911. They walked out.