I was running around the college track between classes yesterday. Toward the end of my second lap, I saw a crowd of twenty or so students standing nearby. They were watching a fight. One of the fighters looked like a stereotypical black football-player type, and the other like a Latino version of Mr. T. The latter bore a nasty-looking blackened left eye.
This was very odd. I’ve attended this college for almost two years, and had yet to see any violence. Yes, there have been shouting matches over the more extreme propaganda on campus (posters with <Israeli flag> = <Nazi flag>, massive posterboards with aborted fetuses right outside the cafeteria) but never more than heated words. It was a generally peaceful campus, almost a pleasant place to be.
Without thinking rationally, I moved between the two pugilists to break up the fight. I blocked Mr. T, imploring him to desist, with minimal luck. Then it struck me: both fighters were substantially bigger than I. I’m 6’1, 170lb - a bit imposing in appearance but not a very effective pugilist or peacekeeper. Both of the fighters had a couple of inches and at least sixty pounds of muscle over me. In short, I had a good shot at having the living shit knocked out of me.
Luckily, someone else - a BIG someone else, probably a coach - followed several seconds later to restrain the other guy. Then a few more from the crowd moved in, and the fight was over.
What business did I have interfering? Certainly none worth risking bodily harm. I acted on a stupid impulse, and if there hadn’t been another person nearby willing to help, I’d probably be hospitalized right now. Fucking idiot. So to myself: :wally
Hell, even if he is fishing for compliments, he’s gonna get one from me. It takes some guts to step into a fight and try to break it up, especially if neither of the fighters knows you and so have no incentive not to punch you in the head. It might not be the smartest thing in the world to do, from a personal safety standpoint, but it’s the right thing to do. Of course, this is not the case if there are, or might be weapons involved.
And, as the OP found out, it often only takes one brave soul to step in, and a bunch of other people will then follow.
By the way, Paladud, did you find out what caused the brouhaha?
Come on dude, it’s hardly the worst. I could have suggested he’s making it up.
Apart from being reckless, I don’t think it’s all that noble in those circumstances. If two grown men, pugilists nonetheless, want to sort something out in their own brutish way, then who the fuck he is he to decide otherwise? If black stereotype and Mr. T were evenly matched and not carrying weapons, then they were unlikely to do irreparable damage to each other.
I grew up in Northern Ireland, Jakarta and Melbourne’s inner suburbs and I’ve managed a pub in London and worked in plenty of others. I’ve seen (and run away from) more fist fights than most people have had hot dinners and they don’t usually warrant somebody else sticking their nose in.
Consenting adults have a right to be stupid brutes if they aren’t hurting anybody else.
I’m just wondering this in sort of a devil’s advocatish sort of way, but what’s the point of trying to stop a fight between two equally matched opponents? I have often stepped (as a bartender/bouncer) to try to stop a bar fight; and I hope I would intervene if the odds needed evening, but if two fellows want to have a go why would you feel the need to stop them?
No particular point in interfering, hence the pitting. I’d be perfectly content to leave them alone to pound the living crap out of each other if I had been thinking in the first place. No idea as to why the fight started.