The make-up sex must have been epic.
One of my nephews went through a period in his mid-twenties where he would go to a bar and instigate a fight. He would casually insult two or three guys, who would then figure they’d kick his ass. But he loved fighting, and always won. Now he’s in his 30s, with a wife and two kids.
When I was a student, I worked behind the bar of a pub, where one Saturday night a brawl broke out. We couldn’t really see what was happening as it was really busy, so just looked like a mass of heaving bodies rolling back and forth with the odd sound of breaking glass. The manager told us to stop serving drinks and call the Police - he and some of the other male bar staff dived in and kicked the fighters out.
We shut the pub and had a private party. Police turned up when it was all over.
All her base are belong … ???
I’m just an average guy, but in my youth when I frequented bars loaded, I saw bar fights prolly every couple of months, and was involved in two or three myself, bloody nose and all. Common as dirt, I’d say, in 1990’s Northern Europe.
Never been to a bar with an actual fight (plenty of people getting into each other’s faces before getting kicked out) but I was at a bar where an angry patron tried to throw a bottle through one of the front plate glasses windows but the bottle bounced back and broke on the front pavement. Made an awfully loud sound hitting the plate glass but I didn’t see any cracks on it when I came back a week later.
I’ve seen about 3 fights in bars, when people were punching each other and got thrown out quickly. And I haven’t spent that much time hanging out in bars!
During college I went to a bar with three friends. I’m a man and the three friends were women. We all sat at the bar and ordered beers in bottles. They gave us four bottles and gave glasses to the women only, so I asked for a glass, and the bartender said “Oh, dudes don’t get glasses.”
Then, for some reason unrelated to fighting, my nose started to bleed, so I went to the men’s room where I was standing over a sink dripping blood into it. Every guy that came into the room assumed I had been in a fight and asked how I was doing, how bad was I hurt, etc. In a moment I’m not proud of, to one of them I actually said, “you shoulda seen the other guy”.
One of the last bar fights I saw was in Japan (years ago now). I actually knew both guys: an American and Scottish guy. The American was a womanizing, chronically drunk asshole and the Scottish guy loved to get drunk and show off his wit by insulting people. I don’t know what was said but I remember one moment they were playing pool; the next I heard a loud thud and the pool stick hitting the floor. The American was on top of the Scot, pinning him to the floor and cursing him. I went over and started tapping the American guy on the shoulder and quietly calling his name over and over again, which was almost a mistake because he swatted my hand away, got up and started staring me down. He then nudged me out of his way before storming off.
I once listened in while 2 friends traded stories about bar fights they’d been in. One of the friends is a woman.
To avoid the most epic bar fights, stay away from Deep Space Station K7, especially if there are Klingons about.
Reminds me of a near fight between two women. The bar was showing the Holyfield-Lewis boxing match on PPV. I think one lady bumped into the other and spilled a drink. I hear something like “Watch where you goin, bitch!” and it was on. A good minute or two of trash talking, shouting, and stare downs. Both had mostly male entourages and to their credit, both entourages did a good job of next getting sucked into it, which meant that it went about as far as trash talking but no further.
I was in the bar when a couple of fights broke out over the years I lived in Boston. The bouncers were always on top of things, so there wasn’t much to see before the participants were tossed out. I also remember a fight that broke out in a bar in San Diego on Halloween in 2010, because my idiot boyfriend decided to jump into the fray–he claimed later he was trying to break it up. Of course the bouncer couldn’t see that, so he was kicked out along with the people who were fighting.
Saw a ‘fight’ just outside a bar. Bouncer vs a guy I’ll call Not, because he was not everything the bouncer was; he was not big, not young, not sober. He came up to about the chin of the bouncer, but was berating, cussing, and pointing his finger at the bouncer; probably angry that he’d been thrown out. Bouncer was very calm, just standing with arms crossed, looking over Not’s head for anything interesting in the parking lot. This went on for 5 minutes.
Then Not drummed his fingers across the face of Bouncer.
Bouncer uncrossed his right arm from his left, and delivered a punch without even pulling his elbow away from his side; just brought the arm vertical, with his fist curled forward. More of a cartoon Bop! than a punch.
It crumpled Not up like a rag doll. Bouncer re-crossed his arms and resumed scanning the property.
Closest thing I’ve see to a bar fight was over 40 years ago in a rural bar that mostly handled farmers and workers from the nearby farm equipment factory. I was standing at the bar when two guys in the corner booth started pounding on each other. I’ve no clue who they were or what started it and I pretty much bailed as soon as I noticed to commotion. I’ve no idea how it ended.
Apparently the place had a pretty rough reputation. My dad was a reserve member of the local Sheriff’s office. He told me that calls from there were at least a weekly event but I only ever witnessed the one.
I worked in bars and nightclubs for a few years and have seen plenty of fights…but rarely in the actual bar or club though, usually outside, or at one of the late night fast food places (don’t recall ever seeing the latter in a movie).
ETA: this was in the UK
That’s usually when things get scary - not inside the bar, but when the fight leaves the bar and goes out into the street. A fight between two people is one thing; a fight involving a crew is another, and the results can be deadly.
When I was forty-something, I was at a friend’s bar with a group of guys all 45-60. It wasn’t the kind of bar where you’d expect a fight. Then some 20-something guy comes in with his 18 year old gf. The doorman knew the girl, knew she was underage, so he told her she couldn’t enter. Her boyfriend shoved the doorman aside and came in.
The owner (our friend) went over to toss the couple, but the guy shoved him aside and told him they weren’t leaving.
When we all saw our friend get shoved, falling to the ground, we reacted/overreacted quickly. I remember I grabbed an arm, everyone grabbed some part of the guy and held on tight. The doorman was pissed off, so he started punching the guy’s face over and over. The owner got up, brushed himself off, then began kicking the kid in the ribs.
We carried the guy to the door and then outside, where we swung him back and forth, 1…2…3…then threw him toward the curb. He hit a parking meter and laid there.
We all left, fearing the eventual arrival of the police. The owner gave a police report, saying the beat-up guy had come in and started a fight with a bunch of guys who he’d never seen.
A week or so later I heard people talking about the fight, and about how the owner of the bar beat the crap out of a 23 year old.
I’ve been in very few bars but haven’t even seen any conflict let alone a fight. As opposed to concerts, where every tenth concert or so I see people throw down enough that security is called. I don’t think that’s because the crowd at punk concerts was more rowdy than the crowd at the bars I’ve been to but because of the fact there were hundreds of people at the concerts gives more people more opportunities to fight.
Poker rooms are even less rowdy than concerts IMO. I used to go once every couple weeks for a few years and I only saw one fight amongst the hundreds of thousands of player-hours I was exposed to (i.e me playing for hundreds of hours exposed to hundreds of potential fighters). A few tables away from me I saw someone just stand up and whale away on someone for a few blows until security came. Apparently the hittee had been disparaging the hitter’s mother and had been warned that he would be retaliated on if he continued trying to rag on him (he was probably using this insult to try to throw him off his poker game). I think they were both thrown out of the poker room. The table actually had blood on it and they had to shut that table down for a few hours while they cleaned and disinfected it.
Here’s an interesting article summarizing some research on the subject: https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/918856-federal-study-bar-fights-tend-happen-darker-dirtier-bars-frequented-heavy
“Bar characteristics that are related to the occurrence of violence included: smokiness, noise, temperature, dirt, darkness, crowding, poor ventilation, the presence of competitive games (e.g., darts, pool), bouncers, and more male than female employees,” the researchers wrote in a summary of their work published in 2004.
“Individuals who usually visited violent bars were more likely to be younger, to be lower on agreeableness and conscientiousness, to be more impulsive, and more likely to express their anger, to be heavier drinkers, to have alcohol dependence problems, and to be more likely to hold the belief that alcohol makes them aggressive,” the researchers wrote.