Blood Sport

It’s Christmas time. The semester ended today. The remaining students from the singles wards got together on Friday night. There was food, camaraderie, social mingling, lots of fun. There was also some pretty amazing violence. People went to the hospital, ER.

A couple weeks ago I mentioned to my ward leadership that maybe we should have a ward Christmas party. All the family wards in town were doing it, why not us too? We could do it on Friday, after all the finals were over. Other Bishops said, “No one will be here. Everybody goes home when their finals are done.” I polled some students. There would be some here, 10-20 or so from our ward. That’s enough for me.

My Elders Quorum President had a different idea. (This is the guy who wore a ‘Hooters’ t-shirt to FHE one time.) He said, “We were thinking we would have and EQ activity that night, kind of a man-building thing.” I asked, “Could we turn it into a ward activity? Get some food? Hang out?” “Sure. We could do that. We are gonna have our fight night too. We can also invite the Relief Society to fight”, he says. Great.

So the EQ offers to host the ward activity. They planned the food, arranged matches (guys AND girls), and got the gloves and headgear. I wasn’t sure what to think about the fights, but at least we could kind of get together as a ward and hang out, relax. I figure it would be either something that would be great and we should do it more often, or we should ban it all together and never consider it again. One little problem – my daughter has her Christmas music program at school that night. Bummer. I figure I will just show up late to the activity, if I make it at all.

Friday night comes. We all go to Tabitha’s Christmas music program at 6:15, then to Kinko’s to copy some music for Sam, then home. I tell the family I’m going to the Institute to check on my ward activity. It’s about 7:30, the activity was to start about 7:00, which means I’m actually only about 10 or 15 minutes late. First thing to see, a few people and the food. They deep fried 2 turkeys and roasted a third. They also had all kinds of salad, baked French fries, various potato chips, pink lemon-aid, and cookies. Plenty of food, good food. I have been DYING to try some fried turkey. Sure enough, it’s awesome.

I missed the first fight. It was a “chick fight”, two roommates, one husky, the other very tall. I see the husky one and she explains that she is one her lunch break and had to get back to work so they had to go first. I go into the expanded classrooms to check the fights. It’s PACKED – about 80 or 90 people are there! All 4 wards came. Cool. As for turn-out, the activity is a huge success. And everyone seems to have a great time.

The fights are a different story. It’s brutal, ugly, scary, riveting! We cannot help but watch. People actually are getting HURT! I notice before long that the big guys, over 200 pounds, don’t seem to react so violently when a glove connects with their heads. Under 200 pounds, it’s just really scary and violent. People are getting knocked down, heads are snapping back, sweat and spit are flying. Fortunately, most of them are wearing mouth guards. In all, there were probably about 15-18 matches, including about 5 girl matches. They usually go do 3 one-minute rounds. There were LOTS of OH’s and OU’s from the audience.

There were about 6 bloody noses, which ended those matches on the spot. It was not at all pretty, especially when the girls were pounding each others brains out. The headgear didn’t seem to help much. It did help to create more sweat so that when a glove connected to someone’s head, there was a better visual effect. There was a lot of pain. Everyone complained of headaches, internal bruising, aching neks and arms, and lots of general soreness, etc. As of this writing, 48 hours later, even new pains were making themselves evident in some people.

The worst injury was a pretty severely broken nose. Blood gushed pretty well initially. It started out as a messy blob on his face. After a while of lying on a couch with ice, a lot of the swelling went down, and the nose was somewhat straight. It was just off to the right side about a half an inch, not matching up in the middle between his eyes. Uggghhhh…gruesome! It took a while to convince him to go to the hospital, but he did go. Today at church, he has 2 semi-blackened eyes, and an offset nose. They won’t set it for another day or so. Most of the others are still complaining of aches and pains too. But everyone raved about what a great activity it was. Go figure.

Many people taunted me, wanting me to fight. One of the older girls in my ward offered me $10 to go the 3 rounds with someone. Hearing that, someone else said he would add another $10 to that. Nothing could convince me.

I realized something important late Friday night. If the Church legal department heard about this, the walls would come crashing down. The legal liability issues could be outrageous. They would NEVER approve, and would probably take strong action to make sure it didn’t happen. Whew! Good thing it’s over and no one seems to being sewing!

Camaraderie happened. People bonded. Students were fed. There is a lot more respect in the Institute. They kept the blood off the carpet. There were even some surprising upsets. It was a well-attended activity with plenty of enjoyable food. This particular activity will never happen again. I don’t think I could handle the stress. Fight Night – kind of cool, but not worth the risk. Don’t fall for it.