On yesterday’s NBA fight post, js’ comment raised a fun concept:
As long as they keep it on the court/field/rink/pitch (ie, no going after fans) and pick on people their own age/size/etc (ie, no going after 80 year old pitching coaches with metal plates in their heads, or whatever that Red Sox fight involved) and stay within accepted boxing rules (ie, no using baseball bats or chairs or helmets [Miami (FL)]), I say stop the game, get everyone else out of the way, and let them go at it. Make them go at it. Maybe it’s not so great when you actually have to fight someone.
After reading that idea, I realized that controlled fighting already exists. No, not in the NBA, but in the NHL.
Consider the standard NHL fight: two players drop their gloves, play stops, and everyone else clears the area to watch the fight. The combatants land a few punches, someone falls to the ice, and they both skate off the ice. That’s it. Fights aren’t extraordinarily common, but when they do happen, they’re consistent and contained.
It would be nice to be able to tell athletes to finish all the fights they want to start; it might reduce the absurd bravado many athletes feel safe displaying. Unfortunately, I suspect hockey fighting wouldn’t translate well to other leagues: as odd as this may sound, I’m not sure other professional leagues could keep it as civil.
I remember JV basketball, starting the season injured from football, and never finding a place past 3rd-string. Some of the starters in practice, if they felt they were in some way disrespected, would get into little shoving matches with other starters. That irritated me – here I am, showing up every day for practice, sitting around most of the time (1st string would scimmage 2nd string mostly), getting to play in games the last 60 seconds if it wasn’t close. And these fools couldn’t even go through a practice without trash talking and shoving each other.
That’s how I feel when I see Div-IA football players, or NBA players, or MLB players fighting. You’re making tons of money for playing a game (or might be soon, for college players), you’re living some people’s dreams, and you waste your energy trash talking and shoving.