Award Tour Vol. 39: This Cannot Be Right

Often in life, we attempt to observe the adage, "Live and let live". In general, it's not a bad concept, but sometimes a man must draw a line in the sand and say, "this far and no further". I draw that line now. Anyone remotely associated with the promotion of the fight linked below has committed a crime against man and nature. I perused the video, and intially thought that this couldn't be video from an actual sanctioned fight - no - this must have been footage left on the "Cutting Room" floor for a training video for Bouncers entitled, "Know When to Say When: Dealing With the Drunken Red Neck in Your Bar".

As soon as the video begins, you can't help but to empathize with the rot-gut disgust that must be gripping the torsos of each and every patron that paid good money to see this.

Editor's Note: The first time I watched this video, I assumed from the display that the crowd must have been disappointed with what they saw. At the time, I didn't have audio - or a sense that the crowd was actually out of their collective minds. As the melee ensues, the crowd roars, not in protest, but in approval, confirming to me once and for all, that there is no hope for mankind. Their approval also dramatically increases the likelihood that the two combatants were actually randomly selected from the crowd to participate in this contest, but I digress... here's what you need to know:

Does the establishment give you a reputable fight with reputable fighters? Do they even give you a reasonable fascimille using local talent (talent being a word I cringe to use in reference to this sad presentation)? No, they give you Willie "Flap Jack" Jenkins out of Broken Still, Kentucky using the never before seen "Fiddler Crab" fighting style. He is promptly beat senseless by his foil James "Jimmy Dean" Johnson hailing from Corn Cob, Mississippi. (There's probably a reason why no one but Flap Jack uses the "Fiddler Crab" fighting style - apparently it doesn't even work well against a rudimentary Two-Fisted attack that you'd expect from your standard bar-room brawl. You are unable to conclude anything else when you watch Flap Jack establish a defensive Fiddler Crab mode against a conventional 1-2 punching style; the defense proves adept at channeling punches into his face, but regretablly not so effective at blocking them.)

Aside from the complete and utter void of fighting prowess put on display, we have our retinas and psyches singed simultaneously, as we watch two out of shape "Jethros" throw down on each other in what is meant to pass for Mixed Martial Arts - and even more laughably - entertainment - (Editor's Note: Ignore the rowdy energetic response from the crowd - they show almost an equally poor sense of judgment by cheering this on, as the two fighters in the ring). Neither Flap Jack nor Jimmy Dean have the deceny to break their non-dominant arms before the bout in acknowledgement that they cannot deliver on either count - Martial Artistry or Entertainment (Editor's Note: ignore the crowd). Instead, thinking only of themselves - Jimmy Dean and Flap Jack chose to do combat - each with no shirt on revealing a layer of stabilizing fat, and shock absorption fat respectively (probably the result of years of consumption of Crisco related products). Without truly knowing it's strategic value, I can only postulate that the stabilizing fat acted as a counter-balance to each punch thrown (and in Flap Jack's case, for each punch taken).
What you gaze upon in the ring ends up looking more like two man-sized Ziploc bags full of wet cake mix flailing at each other - this cannot be right.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2525485718783652774&q=fight