yet battle on against multiple assailants for an unbelievable amount of time. Most real fights are over rather quickly, taking minutes if not seconds before someone is knocked out, gives up, or runs off.
The intensity of a real fight is many, many times beyond what is experienced in the boxing ring or martial arts tournament. If you can imagine the other guy jumping on you, bearing down with his weight to slam you onto the pavement, and then pummeling you about the head and face until you lose consciousness, you’ve got some idea of what a real fight is all about. There is no jockeying for position, no sizing him up, and no trading punches then falling back to your corner at the end of the round; it’s full on knock him on his ass and stomp a mud hole through him kind of stuff.
Even if you are in great shape and an expert martial artist, you cannot expect to duke it out with another guy for half an hour and walk away unscathed. When it comes to multiple assailants, the odds are stacked against you even further. Frankly, any fight that lasts more than a few seconds is bound to result in injury. If you cannot escape a battle through awareness, avoidance, or de-escalation, then ending violence quickly should be your goal.
Adrenaline is a huge factor too. If you have ever fired a 12-gauge shotgun at a gun range, such as when shooting at targets or clay pigeons, you have no doubt noticed that those things kick like a mule, jarring your shoulder and rattling your teeth with each shot. It’s even worse if you fire heavyweight 00 buckshot or slug loads as opposed to lightweight birdshot. If you are out in the wild, hunting geese, ducks, or deer with that same shotgun, however, you don’t notice any adverse impact when you take a shot. There is no perceived kick at all. What’s the difference between these two scenarios? Why, adrenaline of course. When you are hyped up, you simply don’t feel pain, or at least don’t feel it to the same degree.
It’s all well and good to dream about how tough you are, how big, strong, or skilled in martial arts you might be, yet the realities of street violence are very different from what most people think. The boxing match or mixed martial arts tournament pales in comparison to the brutality of a street fight. Slickly choreographed Hollywood films only exacerbate the fantasy of what true violence entails. Beware of these misconceptions. Don’t confuse sports with combat or misconstrue entertainment with reality.
Beware of Hollywood misconceptions. For example, it is rare for a shooting victim to fall down instantly or otherwise be stopped dead in his tracks by a single shot, even one to the head.
Holding a gun sideways as gangsters are frequently shown to do in movies increases the chances of a stovepipe, jam, or feeding failure that will render the weapon temporarily inoperable. If you carry a weapon, learn to use it properly.
The same kind of thing happens in a street fight. Kane vividly remembers an incident at the stadium where one guy accidentally broke his own hand punching a metal stair rail when he missed a shot at his opponent during a fight. He then proceeded to pummel the other guy without regard to his injury. In fact, he didn’t even notice that he was bleeding until after the police had tackled him, dragged him off his victim, and handcuffs were snapped into place. His hand was mangled so badly that two of his knuckles were displaced and there was bone showing through at the injury site yet it had not even slowed his attack. Imagine what a dedicated attacker could do to you if you are unable to stop him.
The realities of street violence are very different from what most people think. The boxing match or mixed martial arts tournament pales in comparison to the brutality of a street fight. Sure, competitors do get seriously hurt from time to time when people beat the tar out of each other in the ring, but these competitions are first and foremost sporting events nevertheless. If they weren’t, many competitors would not survive the “fighting” and the promoters would either wind up in jail or get sued out of business in short order. To help assure the safety of everyone involved, competitors use various types of gear such as padded gloves, mouth-guards, and groin protection.
Unlike actual street-fighting, sporting competitions have weight classes. Take the UFC, for instance. Under their rules competitors are grouped into lightweight (over 145 pounds to 155 pounds), welterweight (over 155 to 170 pounds), middleweight (over 170 to 185 pounds), light heavyweight (over 185 to 205 pounds), and heavyweight (over 205 to 265 pounds) divisions. On the street, you may find yourself tangling with someone much larger or smaller than yourself or potentially more than one adversary at the same time.
Sporting competitions have set time periods. Sticking with the UFC example, non-championship bouts run three rounds, while championship matches last five, with each round lasting five minutes in duration. There is a one-minute rest period between rounds. On the street, fights rarely last more than a few seconds, but when they do, there is no stopping until it’s done, someone intercedes, or the authorities arrive to break things up. In the ring, you can win by submission (tap or verbal), knockout, technical knockout, decision, disqualification, or forfeiture. On the street, you win by surviving. The goal of self-defense is not to defeat an opponent but rather to escape to safety.
Unlike brawling on the street, so-called “no holds barred” events have a whole lot of rules. Of course, if you take that literally they truly do bar no holds, yet they do ban lots of other stuff that can be very effective on the street, particularly if you are a smaller and/ or weaker combatant. The UFC, for example, outlaws the following:
• Head butts
• Eye gouges
• Throat strikes
• Grabbing the trachea
• Biting
• Hair pulling
• Groin striking
• Fish hooking
• Putting your finger into any orifice or into any cut or laceration on an opponent
• Small joint manipulation
• Striking to the spine
• Striking the back of the head
• Striking downward with the point of your elbow
• Clawing, pinching, or twisting the opponent’s flesh
• Grabbing the clavicle
• Kicking the head of a grounded opponent
• Kneeing the head of a grounded opponent
While so-called “no-holds-barred” competitions have dozens of rules designed to protect the safety of everyone involved, real-life violence has none. For example, MMA fighters don’t generally get murdered in their sleep by their competitors.
• Stomping a grounded opponent
• Kicking the other guy’s kidney with your heel
• Spiking an opponent to the canvas so that he lands on his head or neck
• Throwing an opponent out of the ring
• Holding the shorts or gloves of an opponent
• Spitting at an opponent
• Engaging in an “unsportsmanlike” conduct that causes an injury to an opponent
• Holding the ropes or the fence
• Using abusive language in the ring or fenced area
• Attacking an opponent during a break period
• Attacking an opponent who is under the care of the referee
• Attacking an opponent after the bell has sounded the end of a period
• Disregarding the referee’s instructions
• Interference by someone in the competitor’s corner.
