The day I learned that martial arts werent just for show..
I was 16, maybe 17, and had just finished work. Now, this was before many of my friends knew that I was a martial arts creep - I was the geeky kid, was built like a pencil and quite frankly, wouldnt say boo to a goose.

I was en route to a party, just finished my chippy, bottle of oasis (well, vodka. In an Oasis bottle) in hand - and I heard some shouting up ahead - turns out its one of my slightly "stranger" friends, flanked by two of the others following at a fair distance, shouting and screaming.

"Oh, alright lads!"
"garbled shouting, followed with 2 other lads going "ooooooh"

Upon closer inspection, because this didnt look right - friend 1 is steamrolling toward me, slight swagger - obviously drunk. Before he even gets to speaking distance, hes throwing a haymaker from last christmas, and my own forearm launches up to meet the inside of his.

"wow, Im fucking NEO!" thinks I.

Before another ridiculous haymaker almost catches my cheek.

"Alright mate, relax and tell me whats up with you"

More garbled shouting, and another haymaker. Now this is the first time ive ever lost my temper. This time when my arm goes up, I throw a low kick into the side of his leg, making him drunkenly sway even further to one side. I dont even notice the overhand i throw into the side hes moved to, putting an end to the fight.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what inspired me to take up amateur bouts. Slightly less successfully, a fair few times.

EDIT: Turns out he was on speed, drunk, and somehow thought id called him a pedo at some point. hmm.
(bredstkcriminal, Sat 16 Mar 2013, 0:15, 7 replies)

A STORMTROOPER BANGS HIS HEAD!!!!!!

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 22:04, 9 replies)

I've not had many real fights
One that springs to mind was when a group of my friends from school were visiting another mate at his university. My arch-nemesis* was there and unbeknownst to me, he'd been talking to a girl on the internet and was intent on making her his girlfriend. I'd met this girl independently and thought she was rather lovely and I was fairly sure that she liked me. Anyway my arch-nemesis got wind of this and demanded retribution, outside, for making moves on "his" girl. Now my arch-nemesis has published a book on martial arts, he's been training since he was a kid and while he's not tall, he's built like the proverbial. And at this point he was really, really angry with me so figuring that he wasn't going to let it go, I followed him outside along with an entourage of our friends who, if they weren't chanting "Fight! Fight! Fight!", were in this version of the story.

So finally I was facing my arch-nemesis on a university campus in the early hours of the morning and like any skinny, gobby shite I was winding him up and provoking him until he went for me. Which he did. Now I don't know if it was the heroic amount of beer and vodka he'd drunk, his extra body mass, that he wasn't terribly good at martial arts despite all his protestations to the contrary or a combination of all three, but he was slow. I mean, really fucking slow. The Matrix hadn't even been made then, but looking back it was like I was fighting in bullet-time. So every time he tried to punch or kick me (after telegraphing it for what felt like an eternity first) by the time the blow had landed where I'd been, I was somewhere else. Precisely, I'd run around behind him and was pretending to shag him up the arse.

Now for some reason this jocularity just made him angrier, so he'd turn around and launch into another laboriously slow move that he'd obviously practised but never used in a fight situation, and yet again by the time he'd finished it I was holding onto his belt and energetically dry-humping him. It occurred to me that this wasn't a sustainable strategy as sooner or later I was going to get tired dancing around him and if one of his clumsy haymakers eventually connected it would definitely hurt a lot but at the same time it was exhilarating to be winning a fight without actually throwing a punch, like holding a tiger by the tail.

Anyway, it fizzled out when one of our (much harder than both of us) mates stepped in to retrain my nemesis and told me to piss off while he calmed him down, because at this point he was red-faced and almost literally steaming with anger and frustration. So I went back to the party which I later left with a young lady, while my nemesis went back to wooing "his" woman on the internet, which I don't believe worked out that well. We're still nemeses now, though, and can laugh about it all these years later. Probably.

*More of an affectionate term than anything, as even during the Great War we'd still meet up for a beer and a game of chess every so often.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 21:44, 12 replies)

Passive survival.
Always been someone who was conditioned by a Catholic upbringing to see the best in others, not be aggressive, not be a dick (there were still a few at Catholic High School who didn't get the message but yeah, whatever.) and to turn the other cheek. Also, don't escalate.

I've been in 6 (does the sums, EDIT 5) fights in the past and narrowly avoided one- seeing as three where in High School I don't really count them as serious peril but there are lessons to be learned nonetheless, human nature being continuous from birth to grave.

When aged 13, I was getting the bus back from school. Jim (who was at the time the entire ethnic minority of the school- one black pupil amongst 650 WASCs) was mucking about flicking my (admittedly large) ears, much to the amusement of the other kids in the gang. Eventually I turned around, pissed off and said- 'Stop that or I'll start something' and he went for another flick- and I lost it. But as I'm basically a nice guy I didn't think 'punch him in the face', it was more 'push him away, but hard'.

Buses are hardly a roomy dojo environment for scrapping. But we tried, nonetheless.

Escalation ensued and we both went for it. He punched me, I threw in a racist slur (not proud of it, it was the 1980s and it wasn't even an accurate identification of his ethnicity anyway) so battle lines were drawn. I punched him as hard as I could (and witnesses later on said 'it looked like you were winning') but I stopped because I remembered that previously we had been friends and this was a silly thing to fall out over- typical guilt-stricken Catholic, I wanted to apologise so I lowered my fists and started saying my sorries. Oops. Jim finished the fight unapposed and I wandered home snivelling with a bloody nose. I rang him up to say sorry and much to my surprise he also felt bad about how things had gotten out of control. We made up and continued on a normal school life. Meh, Kids.

Falling out on the school field with another braggy shouty bloke who seemed to have an unusual sense of self entitlement, he hit me and I thought 'So, it's on. Return fire' but after a few blows we both got bored, perhaps realising that we were quite evenly matched so it soon degraded to shouting, and then afterwards 'Oh well. Never mind'

There was a bully who was a known hard man 'Peter' would threaten everyone and had a cadre of sycophants and gang members who would stand behind him and shake their fists in menace. One time I bumped into Pete in a corridor and he was immediately ready with fists in the air and threatening to tuough (Molesworth-esque) me up. As I was sick of being bullied by socially more popular people, brother/sister (youngest child syndrome), bossed about by parents etc. I was looking for an opportunity to prove myself (secretly I wanted to see if I was any good in a fight) so I stood up to him. For about 10 minutes (or so it seemed) we traded inane inarticulate insults as him and his entourage laughed at his threats and my rebuttals met with silence. Eventually he let me go without incident (we'd hope that 'standing up to a bully so he left you alone' would be the case, maybe he thought it best not to push my seeming self confidence in case he got shown up?? either way it ended peaceably), and thenceforth used to greet me with 'You're allright!' in the corridor, along with a super hard punch to the arm. I affected not to be bothered. It worked.

Finally, after leaving school I met an objectionable prick I used to go to school with in my pub of choice in Stourbridge, along with several others of the crowd I was at least tolerated with. Remembering that this prick used to use pisstaking (of me) as a way of gaining group acceptance I sauntered over with my pint and said to the seated wanker 'Alright Dave?' thinking- this is no longer school. The same rules do no apply. And I am looming above you.

He didn't think the rules no longer applied. Dave looked up from his seat and said 'Go away RWH, I don't like you and when I don't like people I tend to hit them'.

So that's how it's going to play out? I don't want to be intimidated so I lean over him and say 'Really?'.

The group of seated school friends titter at his brazen attitude. He's smiling like a shit eater at this point so I thought the chances of actual harm were remote'

No, he punches upwards and gets me in the cheek which makes the combined group laugh. Then sits down, still smiling, to see how I react.

So what do I do now?

Think... to escalate is an all out punch up. This is my pub and I don't want to get barred. So, recalling an anecdote I'd heard about a famous local hardman from many years before, I copy the 'style'-I made as to not be bothered from the ssault and calmly enquire 'So. What did you do that for Dave?'.

I thought I'd won a point as he looked a little confused that it was not panning out the way he thought it was going to go...but the slow-lit fuse of rage suddenly caught up and enflamed my anger, so calm quickly gave way to hot-faced rage.

Subsequently I lost my cool and shouted off an adrenaline fuelled, badly phrased spur-of-the-moment angry speech about what I'd do to him if he ever did that again, which came across comedically bad to the rest of the pub and just made people laugh.

Stomping out of the pub I saw a WPC patrolling the precinct opposite and asked how A.N.Onymous could report an assault. Finding out that they'd need witnesses and the people he was with would have had a sudden memory lapse meant I had nothing. I went home and resolved to do better next time.

Next time in Stourbridge again, maybe only 6 months later, drunkenly going for a kebab at the place next to the subway to the bus station, I espied a rather large gent with popeye forearms, back-of-the-neck fat rolls, beer gut to die for and tats up and down both arms, poking through a tattered Judas Priest t-shirt (and I bet he was one of the many who thought JP was the epitome of METAL hardness without realising Rob Halford was gay, which that kind of metal fan would end up being quite cross about.... but I digress.

Later on I was to find out this man-lump was called Dale and was a typical 'goes down the pub looking for a fight guy' who claimed to be in the SAS but probably wouldn't have made the jog to the C-130 without popping a heart valve. Still, aggression is 9/10ths of the fighty bastard, eh?

Stumbling about outside with my kebab I must have looked like an easy target for a slap (purple paisley shirt, skinny jeans, 10 stone 18 year old with longish hair) so he called across to me 'Oi, what team do you support?'.

I suspected there was a wrong answer to be had here and he was already making warm-up exercise swings with his arms. Thinking there were only so many local teams to choose from, I tried to size him up as a likely West Brom/Birmingham City/Aston Villa fan, when I spotted the tattoos on his arms were all Wolves. Oh, that's easy I thought, if I like Wolverhapton Wanderers as well he won't be looking to knock my block off.

'Wolves, course' I replied, knowing this had got me off the hook.

Nope. He just wanted some flimsy justification to set about me and because I didn't satisfy him with the wrong answer, he ignored it and started slapping and punching me.

Now, as I've already said, I was very pissed at the time so the punches just seemed to bounce off me- I heard the vibrational impacts in my ear, felt a kind of numb shock but not really pain so it took me a while to realise what was happening- then sense took over and I legged it. My younger lithe self was too quick for him so I managed to escape. Phew.

Except that we both went around opposite sides of the same block and I bumped into him again a few minutes later and with me adrenalised and a bit more aware. I said 'Look mate, we've had a misunderstanding. Let's forget it and...' ah no, I was back in fist range now so he started lamping me again. Again I ran off. Woke up the next morning with wet cold feet and missing shoes, god knows what happened afterwards, face fairly bruise-y but no major damage. What a cunt. But then me- what a naive twat.

And to a few years ago when (at 38) a friend and I who had known each other since we were 4. We were walking across a petrol station forecourt in one direction, 11 o'clock on a Friday night having sunk some pints in town. The usual post-pub kebab-seeking journey, shooting the shit and punning about obscure in-jokes. Tom is tickled by a remark I make and laughs out loud just as a gang of spotty yoofs were going the other way across the forecourt. Upon hearing Tom laugh out loud one of the yoofs imitates it 'Hur hur hur that's really funny, NOT'.

Slightly annoyed I tossed the riposte 'You wouldn't even understand why it's funny' and went on, intent on going about my business.

'YOU WOT?' came the aggressive teenage sulky riposte. 'Never mind' said I, walking on. Only he chased me down and confronted me."You think you're so fucking clever etc." and "What are you, like, 40? (38 you cheeky fucker) And you're scared of a 16 year old?".

No, I wasn't scared but I was aware that Tom who I was with was a primary school teacher, and 'Angry 40 (38) year old beats up 16 year old child while primary school teacher watches' headline in the local paper wouldn't help his career at all.

'Whatever' I say, walking off, 'I'm going somewhere you're not allowed- the pub'. I'm aware that he is following me and his posse are holding cricket fielding positions in a circle around me.

'You're running away!' he gloats, skipping along beside me, 'You're running away from a 16 year old!'

'No, I'm not starting on you because if I did you'd end up in hospital' I retorted shortly.

*Bang* he punched me in the eye out of the dark as I wasn't facing him, so hard that I *saw* a flash of light because of my shocked nerves and it was midnight dark.

Once again I thought- here we go, do I react in the following manner-
1) Go mental, (*try to*) break him into a million pieces, not be proud of myself, face jail time.
2) Go mental, his gang joins in, I get kicked to pieces.
3) Ignore and laugh it off as inconsequential.

I go for option 3, carry on to the pub leaving him surrounded by his mates, congratulating him for 'seeing me off'. Go to bar, get pint proceed to drink the pint.

Someone in the pub does a double take, looks concerned and asks me if I've seen myself.

Turns out the little shit was wearing a sovereign ring and when he punched me, one side of his ring left a crescent shaped cut in my skin which had started to drip blood. Deep enough to leave a scar which is still visible under strong light. Fuck. I'm most annoyed because he still believes that he 'won', whereas I know I've avoided going to jail for not reacting.

Now, I don't like fights and I will prefer to talk my way out of them but if it's unavoidable then I have a pre-rehearsed set of moves from when I did karate aged 16. It's not about the punching or kicking but the putting the opposition in a position where they are disadvantaged- usually on their ass.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Fri 15 Mar 2013, 21:34, 8 replies)

Dangerous Lagos
I spent three months in and out of Lagos, had a wonderful time there. Trouble? Not really, apart from my English friend getting beaten up by... another English guy in the pub.
(mortisdead, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 19:40, 3 replies)

I'm ginger. If you hit me, I couldn't really complain could I?
*btw - I'm not really ginger
( 4Q just lurking, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 19:29, 2 replies)

I have a heart condition. If you hit me it's murder

( 2 Can Chunder Word to your mums, I came to prod bums, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 17:55, 12 replies)

I'm not a fighter.
I have a condition, often known as 'being a pansy' or 'punching like a girl', where the slightest tap will break at least two bones in my fingers and one in my hand and/or wrist. Because of this it's impossible for me to really be called the winner of any fight. At best I can lose a bit less than the other person.

With that out of the way, my dad would knock your dad out, are you looking at my bird, you cunt? And you're going home in a fucking ambulance! (Or possibly a taxi, as I doubt they would take you home in an ambulance after getting a kicking. Ambulances are for emergencies and you're taking the piss asking for a lift home. What's wrong with you? No wonder you got a beating, carrying on like that, thinking that the world owes you something. Self righteous prick.)
(Thor McLegend FUCK SHITPANTS PAC MAN, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 17:37, Reply)

Well deserved
This was just a few days ago in one of our local pubs. For weeks they were searching for someone who had been putting Rohipnol or something similarly nasty in the drinks of unsuspecting guests. There were probably 8-10 people affected in February alone. And just when everybody thought this would never end, someone caught him red handed. The 22 year old idiot had put a few drops in a beer. Did they hand him over to police? They sure did. Not straight away of course, they first had a little go at him (as in crap was thoroughly beaten out of him). Then the bouncers were clumsy enough to drop him down a flight of stairs at the entrance. 3 times. Did I or any of the 200+ guests see who did it? Did police care? Did they fuck.
( RedWine President of the S.C.U.M., Fri 15 Mar 2013, 17:08, 8 replies)

Emvee's dad beat me up once.

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 14:26, 7 replies)

I like to be rude and insulting to people on the internet
But in real life I'm actually very nice.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 14:20, 5 replies)

Austria C1984
I’d gone skiing with a groups of friends and we were sampling the delights of the numerous clubs in the small town.

One chap, John, despite being ginger had managed to catch the eye of a young lady in another group. He was apparently getting on well, and they’d decided to wander off by themselves. Prior to this, he’d nipped off to the toilets, only to be confronted by three blokes from the other group, threatening to turn him over if he didn’t leave her alone.

He came back from the bogs rather shaken, but apart from lots of sympathy no one was really going to do anything or take it further.

Apart from Andy.

He went over to the three lads and started screaming at them to come outside with him and have it out. Off they bundled and two of us followed him outside to see if he needed any help.

I got outside just as he was throwing his jacket off and storming up to the biggest one, shouting like a deranged psychotic killer, veins throbbing from his head and spittle flying.

The response from the now shocked subject of his attention?

“Err, well I’d like to fight you, but I’ve got the wrong shoes on to fight in the snow”, as he looked down, vaguely shuffling his feet on the ice.
(Kliper Filllets Getting noticed by twats on the internet since, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 14:00, 5 replies)

Two tramps on a tube
Got on a tube train once in London and just as I stepped on realised I was in the middle of two tramps having a fight. They stopped politely to let me get past and then carried on belting the shit out of each other.
( Ysol ab abl blap, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 13:46, Reply)

To paraphrase D. Adams/ scripture
There is a theory that after we die we must fight to return.

There is another theory that this is actually where we are lol.
(roysin, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 13:30, 5 replies)

Not getting into a foight
I went to Oz about 10 years ago to be my mate's best man.

We were in Wagga Wagga. For those who know, yes, and it was. For those who don't, it's Swindon with an antipodean accent.

We - a group of Aussie and Brit lads - spent much of the time drinking, and on Friday evening found ourselves in some nowhere bar, standing room only.

By now pretty tired from a week's drinking, and the afternoon's chores, we were a relatively quiet bunch, and happy to watch the bar revolve around us.

Standing there, I said to the my mate next to me, "I'm bored. D'you fancy a fight?"

He ignored it for the meaningless irrelevance it was.

Not so Jake The Miniture Muss, who happened to be walking past us at that very moment, and who caught my eye just as I got to the words "D'you fancy a fight?"

He stopped dead. As did my heart. He was a few inches shorter than me, but broader in the shoulders than I was tall, barrel chested, with a handsome scar right across his well-tanned, bristly cheek.

Without breaking stride he was RIGHT in my face, smiling sardonically.

"A foight?!" he spat.

"Erm?!" I squeaked.

"Oi don't FACKIN' think so, ya Pommy BASTARD!"

And walked off. To the great amusement of my fellows.

Still; I had the last laugh, though - I don't fucking live there.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 13:19, Reply)

The other day I walked past a guy who was either furiously angry or on a hands-free phone, or both
As he walked towards me down Carnaby St he was shouting, and all I managed to catch was "...stupid fucking slut! I bet she can't even fucking spell national insurance!"

It did make me wonder what the rest of his rant was about.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 12:54, 2 replies)

When talent-nighting, have talent.
The place: Sukhumvit Soi 11, where all strata of Bangkok society shake the drips of Nana sleaze from their clothing to clink cocktails and dance to live music until the sun pierces the mist around the skyscrapers.

It was a clammy, hot night (for a change). We’d wrapped up the day’s meetings in time to step out into the afternoon sunshine, so none of us felt much like going home, and we opted for a jungle curry with rice and a beer or two before taking a couple of taxis to Suk 11. The theme of the evening was to be live and spontaneous.

After we descended from the taxis, one bar to our right caught our eye: a cosy but modern affair with a glass-panelled front, soft lighting and a bare brick mini-stage at the back for open mic acts. The place was owned by a couple of former radio DJs, so we figured it was a pretty safe bet in terms of hearing some real talent. We got the cocktails in and settled down for an evening of extremely eclectic entertainment, from the waif-like girl with a guitar who sounded spookily like Thom Yorke when she sang to the huge bare-chested guy who slapped a breakbeat on his chest to accompany himself.

Just before midnight a gaggle of local lads came through the door. They all looked barely old enough to be drinking in public, but you could see the bulge of their muscles through their short-sleeved shirts and they walked with the juiced-up swagger of Croydon’s finest. My colleague, who had lived in Bangkok for a little while, motioned with his head and murmured “Muay Thai”. The martial artists colonised a table and got enough drinks in to last the next four hours, and scanned the bar to check if any farang was looking at them funny.

The ambience in the bar was pretty relaxed and there was no particular reason to think anything would kick off, until two things happened more or less at once: a young guy selling leather jackets came through the door; and the next act took the mic. Mr. Leather Jacket clearly needed to make up his quota for the day as he was very persistent, waving the sleeves of his sample jacket in the faces of all the customers and saying “Leather, leather”. I took one look at this jacket and decided it was about as leather as a polyester raincoat, and waved him off. The Croydon crew were less genteel and started slapping him around a bit, tugging at the jacket and almost making the poor guy fall flat on his face. Then, in a split second, the entire table (including Mr. Leather Jacket) froze: the next act had begun to sing.

As one we turned to look at the stage and saw a twentysomething guy with a burgeoning gut putting a childbirth-worthy level of enthusiasm into singing My Heart Will Go On...in the manner of someone who had only seen a video of the original song on TV with the sound off. He sang in time, he got all the words right, but the melody was nowhere to be seen. A couple of glances exchanged to quell the bubbling hysteria amongst us later, and we mutually decided that he was not profoundly drunk; he was, instead, profoundly hard of hearing. This seemed to be confirmed when he kept blissfully singing despite the Muay Thai gang’s increasingly raucous shouts for him to shut up (I assume), which in fact only seemed to encourage him. His eyes closed and he turned his cherubic face upwards to belt out the chorus, and one of the lads decided he’d had enough. He loosened his grip on Mr. Leather Jacket’s collar and strode up to the stage before pouring his entire large beer into the amp.

The amp spat and crackled into silence, pouring forth a large cloud of dirty white smoke, and the singer popped open his eyes before lunging bleatingly at his latest critic. The guy was visibly stifling a laugh as he fended off the doughy fists of his opponent, and seemed to be calculating exactly how many ribs he was going to break to teach this guy a lesson.

It was then that our hero sprang into action.

With a speed that none of us expected of him, Mr. Leather Jacket ran up the stage, prised the two pugilists apart and slapped his finest product sample over the singer’s head, rushing him out of the bar like a policeman bundling a suspect into a waiting patrol car. The rest of us were still sitting there in a mixture of dumbfounded tension and relief that no blood had been spilled, and the patrons instantly waded in to calm their slap-happiest customers before they went off into the night after their prey. Of course, as soon as the source of excitement had been removed, the ambience very quickly returned to normal, and after the backup amp had been wheeled out, the next open mic act took the stage with little more than a hint of a quiver in her voice. On our table, we relaxed into our drinks and mulled over the fact that Thai fighters had just blown up the deaf star with the help of the young skai-hawker.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 12:51, 50 replies)

Fighting on the telephone...
As I got to the car park after work last night I stopped to finish a text message before I got into my car and drove home.
As I put my phone back in my pocket, I became aware of shouting. Proper, top-volume, screechy-voiced, nevermindthatI'minpublicI'vetotallylostmyrag screaming.

I waited a moment before I got into the car, and witnessed a thirty-something chap walk past the car park, evidently "talking" to his son on the phone. From what I can remember, Mr Lostitinpublic's side of the conversation was:

"My own son and you do this to me?! My. OWN. Son?!"
"I wish I'd never had you! I really really wish I'd never had you!"
"My own son?!"
"Honestly, I wish I'd never had you!"
"I'm going to kill you. No, really. When I get home, I am going to kill you"
"My own son? I wish I'd never had you! Wish I'd never had you!"
"I'm going to kill you."

So, that was nice...
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 12:11, 2 replies)

Bar room brawl
It was one of the dodgiest nightclubs I've ever been in, the kind of place that people go to after everywhere else has closed and thanks to their extremely liberal drugs policy I was there with a couple of mates for a few rounds of beers and spliffs after a long day when someone ran past us and as if a switch had been flicked the whole place erupted into a huge fight. It was just like in the movies - at one point I had to pick up my beer as a body went flying across the table and although we managed to stay out of the worst of it, we were still inside when the police arrived and started taking statements. Mindful of the bag of green I was halfway through smoking I tried to get us out of there as quickly as possible, while my most stoned mate thought it was a better idea to try and chat up the young WPC taking his statement.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 11:04, 3 replies)

May as well post this again.
Unfortunately, through a combination of bad luck and stupidity, I've been hardmanned to fuck quite a few times as an adult.

I am not hard. Like any good QOTWer I am over six foot and, ahem, heavily built. But I am resolutely soft as fuck. It took several confrontations, culminating in the one I'm about to describe, to realise that getting all up in people's business is not a wise move if you're soft as fuck.

Like (I suspect) a lot of young men, for a long time I longed to be hard. I watched all the Rocky films, lifted weights, and in crowded pubs I would cast steely glares at those I felt had slighted me or my companions. Lots of 'no, YOU fuck off or I'll batter you ya cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunt' etc etc etc. In retrospect, it wasn't a pleasant look, and was made all the more ridiculous by the fact that in all likelihood I would never batter anyone. I was the worst kind of tough guy – a well brought-up fraud, posing and mouthing off. My own small contribution to Broken Britain.

Cut to the land of the free … Middlesbrough! Oh, glorious Middlesbrough. My heart beats for thee. I grew up not far from this delightful town, and when I was about 20 I went for my final night out there (although I didn't know it at the time).
Things were going well. I was in a club with my two best friends, we were dancing like joyous elves in bad shirts, and a lady in a tight brown dress was letting me finger her on the dancefloor. YES! I got so carried away with excitement that halfway through Bon Jovi's 'Living on a Prayer' I clambered up onto a nearby stage, and with much grace and enthusiasm hurled myself bodily into the air with an almighty 360º strum of my air guitar. Splat! Right back onto the dancefloor sending revellers scattering.

Picked myself up and dusted myself off, only to see that I was surrounded by a tight-knit semicircle of five young men. I couldn't hear their remonstrations over the music, but could tell by their faces that they didn't like me. No matter. I'm hard as fuck, remember.

"FUCK OFF YOU CUNNNNNNTTTTTTSSS! I"LL FUCKING DO ALL OF YAAAAAAAAA!"

For those of you lucky enough to have never been totally and mercilessly sucker punched right in the fucking ear, let me explain how it feels. Imagine it's an icy cold day. Your face is freezing, your ears are red, and someone kicks a heavy basketball from about five feet away right into the side of your stupid fucking head.

For the second time in ten seconds, I found myself lying down on the dancefloor.

After a few confusing moments I managed to gather myself together and stagger out of there, into the foyer where the bouncers congregated. Holding my head, I demanded satisfaction. "Some CUNT just sucker punched me! Get him out here! I'm going to fucking have him!"
Dutifully, and with a wry smile, one of the bouncers who'd seen the lot went and explained the situation to my assailant. A minute later, he was bounding out into the foyer to meet me. The bouncers stood round like betters at a cock fight. "Go on then lads, have it out."

Moments like that can be very edifying. I had peers who never would have dreamed of even going into this club, let alone getting themselves into the situation I was currently in. But I was a prick. Full of shit. And thoroughly deflated by the realisation that here I had a chance to actually prove I was hard, and in actual fact I was just scared as fuck.

My 'opponent' let out a mighty roar, and in true hulk style ripped his shirt off to reveal a body that had clearly been honed through years of strenuous physical activity and hardship. I looked and felt like an accountant. I had thoroughly embarrassed myself. I muttered something along the lines of "forget it, fucking hell, I just wanted an apology," and sloped off to catch a bus. My opponent casually put his shirt back on and went inside the club. Probably to fuck the girl I'd pulled.

Bastard.
( Wet-chinned bag shanker Cannot parse Wogan, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 11:00, 3 replies)

Basically, I had these WMD, but I hid them.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 10:26, 6 replies)

If it moves and it shouldn't, use gaffa tape.
If it doesn't move and it should, use WD40.
(username failed moderation, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 9:02, 17 replies)

I had a fite on the internet with EmVee
I said he was a creepy flid but he got me back by saying he wasn't upset and then I said he was a creepy flid and he put me on ignore 2.0 so then I called him a creepy flid but he wasn't remotely bothered and didn't log out to read and then reply to my posts because he wasn't bothered and then I called him a creepy flid and then he laughed ho-ho because he wasn't bothered and it was all a big trick to get me to become angry so then I called him a creepy flid and now it's now.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 8:59, 26 replies)

Star Wars!
I had just come out of hospital after 12 days and had crutches and my leg was in a full length cast. I also had a catheter bag strapped to my leg. I didn't have the use of my arms because of the crutches or my legs because of the cast and reconstructive surgery. The guy was pissed off about something that I have never fully worked out but as far as I can tell he thought I was starting on him. Luckily his own mates thought he was being a dick starting on a "crippled bloke" and when he attacked me they attacked him breaking his collar bone in the process. My then girlfriend filmed it but the silly bint left the lens cap on so all we have is some audio. Needless to say I had the last laugh until ten minutes later when I was emptying my catheter bag and it went all over my trousers.
( Peej, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 8:54, 6 replies)

Fight song
I played in a band in college, eventually playing in and around New York City for actual money. One weekend we played at a bar in a medium-shit town outside of the city, which we found out on arriving was a popular destination for throngs of bikers at that time.

The whole show felt... precarious from the beginning. People seemed to be having a good, reasonably impaired time, but it wasn't a totally relaxed situation. Half way through the set we got to the single most ridiculous and questionable song of the whole set- a short R+B ballad called Juicy Wet Dream Boogly-Doo, which was awesome but sounded a bit like a song Ween would do if they were imitating themselves. A few minutes in to the song a fierce lady-on-lady struggle spontaneously broke out within the bikers, and spread through them like a slow motion explosion of leather and hair extensions and bottles. We were kind of dumbfounded on stage, but we all tacitly agreed to keep playing, going through the climactic section of the song time after time, maybe because we were all thinking sudden silence would only draw attention to our corner of the bar.

The fight lasted about five minutes with us playing this ridiculous song the whole time, and then the police showed up and spoke to a few people for another five minutes and ended up taking someone away, and around that time we decided to stop the song, which had ended up going from a 3 minute joke to a 13 minute long sexual explosion based soundtrack to a massive brawl. Looking back I think we might have done more to inflame the situation that we thought.
( the prick of misery pierced my foot on a spiiiike on, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 7:38, 1 reply)

I fought the law...



...needless to say, they had the last laugh.
( Ken Oath, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 3:48, 3 replies)

alright

(woocfot friends with Sacha Distel, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 2:26, 20 replies)

Scramblers
It was about 01:00 on a saturday morning in Belfast city centre. A friend of mine was talking to a woman, when a spide (N. Irish chav) sped past him on his moped, almost sending the girl flying. It was just outside a chinese restaurant in a particularly crazy part of the city, Shaftesbury Sq. All the bars in the area get let out at once and it is bedlam. The spide stopped a short distance up the street, where his mates were laughing like a pack of hyenas. My friend shouted "Try that again you wee wanker and see what happens." He sped towards them again, but my friend stepped calmly to the side, grabbed him by the collar, and lifted him off the moped as it continued, driverless, down the footpath. The spide landed on his back. My friend lifted his crash helmet visor, dumped his skelping hot gravy chip into his face, and closed the visor again.

I wept.
(hmsmajesty, Fri 15 Mar 2013, 0:25, 10 replies)

I have taken my laptop outside
and will fight any of you fuckers via Skype if you say that about me mum again.
(Maverickjames 's name is not James, Thu 14 Mar 2013, 23:18, 3 replies)

Star Wars

(gaycunt is a gay cunt, Thu 14 Mar 2013, 21:13, 6 replies)