Anyone here been involved in a bar room brawl? (1 Viewer)

[Zen Butler]

I was recently grazed in the fore head by a flying beer bottle at a local punk bar. I realized that was the closest I have ever been to the real thing. Anyone here been present when chaos pursued?

 

[Christopher P]

Wasn't a brawl, but I was out one time and coincidentally my old college roommate and friend was there. Later I saw him with a big gash on his head. Apparently when he was leaving, someone clocked his dome from behind with a full beer bottle. AS far as I know, nothing much happened after that, and that's all I really know that happened.

I've seen a fair amount of scuffles break out, but the bouncers are usually right on top of them before they escalate. I've never felt in danger because I've seen them throw people out before things got out of hand. (literaly - one bouncer picked a guy up off the ground by the seat of his pants and carried him out with one hand.)

On the other hand, I was in Pioneer Square during Mardi Gras 2001 here in Seattle - I heard that it made some national news, as there were many fights (but not a riot, like the news portrayed). I saw a guy pull and fire a gun a couple times that night, and later on I learned a kid was killed in some melee. I say kid...he was 20. Oddly I never felt unsafe that night, probably because there were SO many people, and I was sober. Many times I saw someone just cold-cock someone for no reason. Funny how punches in real life never sound like they do in the movies.

Chris

 

[Tommy Ceez]

Ive been hit in the head with a gun during a bar fight. Ive also been in a 10 on 30 barroom fight plus other minor fracas (college).

Its not as cool as it is on film. The cops show up a lot quicker in real life, oh, and black eyes really suck.

 

[Zak Solo]

I have.

Have any of you seen About A Boy with Hugh Grant? Well the bar/restaurant that he goes to with his dates etc is called Bar Otto in St Johns Wood (London,UK).

It was my friend's engagement party. At the back of the bar we had a reserved seating area. Anyway he was messing around with one of his friends not violent or anything just pissing about.

The bar manager comes over and punches my mate in the back to stop them playing about. He then runs off and calls over the bouncers. One of which was about 6'5 and properly built.

The situation soon escalated as the bouncers threw their weight around. I went to break up the tussle and got punched. This then involved a few of my other friends and a few of the bouncers friends who 'just happened' to be in the bar.

The bouncer then physically dragged my mate out the back. I followed at which point I was grabbed around my throat and we were physically thrown out and down some concrete stairs.

The police arrived pretty soon afterwards, it turns out the bouncer wasn't licenced and has previous conviictions for GBH. Next day I felt pretty roughed up. Needless to say I haven't been back to the bar.

 

[Scott Van Dyke]

Me and my Dad have once, about 5 years ago. I love telling the story. Read on:

It was late after pool leagues one Thurs. night around 12 mid. It was Me, my Dad (aka: Hoser), Paulie the bartender, and No-Fightin'-Pat (I'll explain later) all sitting around pretty hammered in the bar. We are four of probably 10 regulars that can be found in there almost daily. Small "hick" bar just outside of Milwaukee in a town of 2500 people. (Thiensville)

Five guys come in all boozed and smoked up after a work Christmas party. Ages ranged from 30 to probably 45 or 50. Right away, the one guy starts in on Paulie. "What the fuck are you lookin' at me for?" -Bad idea, since Paulie never takes shit, loves to fight, and is the link between someone and a beer. After this went on for a couple of minutes, Paulie took there pitcher and poured it out, giving them their money back, and telling them to get out. Well, none of them would have that, so voices started to raise. I think everyone was feeling their oats that night...

So my Dad, (6'7" / 325 lbs. / 46 yrs. old) approached the ring-leader, and calmly asked him to just go. Real calmly. I've never seen Hoser fight before. He's more of a peacemaker. That's when the guy started getting beligerent. He started shoving my Dad. I get up, (6'7" / 190 lbs. / 24 yrs. old) walk over there, and cold-cock the fucker. This is the first punch I've thrown in 11 years. Paulie's down, (5'10" / 190 lbs./ 35 yrs. old) so he jumps over the bar and starts swinging. Meanwhile, NFP (Pat) (hear's the kicker: 6'2" / 260 lbs. / 32 yrs. old) is pissing himself in the corner.

So now it's a free-for-all and it's 5 on 3. Two guys start double-teaming Paulie. He was taken out of the picture right away because they pulled his hockey jersey over his head and just started wailing on him with a flurry of sucker punches. Pat later described it as a scene from the movie Roadhouse. I don't remember much. A few memories were:

1. Someone was on me, choking me, when my dad picked him off and bowled him across the floor. His head hit the foot rail and goodnight!
2. I must of told NFP to call 911 three times before he snapped out of it and called.

The brawl went on for about 10 minutes before the cops came in. The place was trashed. My dad found a nickle-bag on the floor, so one of them must of dropped it when the law came in. These guys were giving the cops a hard time, so they went to jail. The cops found a bag of weed on the one guy's dashboard.

My dad only had one shoe on, and I picked the other one up and gave it to him. He said: "That ain't my shoe" (He had trouble catching his breath)

The owner came in and yelled at us for a bout a half-hour. He appologized later, and the other assholes ended up paying for damages. We were simply protecting our tavern.

Apparently Pat went home and explained what happened to his wife, and she yelled at him for not helping us out. To this day, everytime I go in there and see Pat and give him the old: "What's going on, NFP?" Everyone just dies.

 

[Mark Dubbelboer]

Oh man, that last one was a sweet story.
Here's my best, not really a bar fight but along the same lines as NFP and copious amounts of alcohol are involved so i think it belongs.

Went to the bar because one of my good buddies and fellow employees was quitting the restaurant we were all working at and we got absolutely plastered. After the bar closed we decided it'd be a good idea to go for breakfast. The local all night greasy spoon was only about 6 blocks away and we were all smashed so we thought we'd just walk instead of taking a cab. There was a group of 5 us. Me (about 160), my buddy donnie(maybe 155), my buddy blake (at least 250pound, he was the guy who was leaving), my girlfriend and another girl (who combined weight about 205).
So we were walking down the downtown area talking, laughing, having a good time when this car drives by to see what's going on. two guys are in it and they're all hey guys how's it going, what's going on, you got a party to go to? we didn't really want anything to do with strangers so we told them that we were just going to breakfast so just move along. They drove away and we thought nothing of it.
Then like a block later they come flying around from the block and pull up right beside us and jump out of the car and start pushing me and donnie (they nicely ignored blake, who could have easily killed them by blowing on them).
Me and donnie start shoving them back but my girlfriend starts screaming at us to leave them alone and just walk, finally i get some sense into me and i walk to a parking lot across the street with donnie. I see blake and the girls talking to the guys then all of a sudden one of the guys start breaking towards us.
I really have no idea what's going on because i'm pretty freaking drunk and the only thing i know to do is what a pitcher does when someone charges the mound. I just hold my ground and look uninterested then when he gets close enough i lower my head and charge him flipping him over top of me. I turn around while he's on the ground and i'm waiting for this dude to get up when i get punched in the back of the head by his buddy who had made his way over by now. wonderful, after a couple shots to my head he knocks me on the ground and he's sitting on my chest as he's pounding my head into the asphalt over...and over...and over...
Finally my girlfriend makes it over and absolutely boots this guy in his chest knocking him reeling backwards.
I look over to see that donnie and the other girl are fighting with the other dude i had knocked over (well actually it looked more like donnie was trying to protect her....)
Then out of nowhere my knight in shining armor enters. This random single guy that was walking down the street comes up and with one punch just levels the guy who was absolutely killing me. i just started laughing at how big of a pussy i was and thankful of this dude who showed up. We told the guy to come in for supper the next night but we never saw him again.
Freaked my girlfriend out, gave me a bad headache, but don't worry blake wasn't worse for the wear...he was still across the street

 

[Dave Poehlman]

I'm usually the guy with his arms in the air saying, "can't we all just get along?"

I avoid physical confrontations.. not because I am a wimp, but mostly to avoid a trip in a paddy wagon. Cops'll cuff first and ask questions later.

My twin did run a guys head into a pool table once.. he had been mouthing off all night and things got ugly. The loudmouth, after getting a closeup view of the pool table, was asked to leave. Then I saw the same guy later that week and he came walking up to me. I realized he probably has me confused with my twin, so I'm ready to deck this guy as he walks up to me. But, he stops and says "dude, I'm really sorry about being a jerk the other night"

Maybe the pool table knocked some sense into him.

I may need to revisit this thread in a few weeks, me and a few friends are going up north to a back woods town for our annual fishing trip. The people in this hillbilly town like to do three things: sex, alcohol, and start bar fights... so, hopefully I wont have a new story for you.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Had a glass crushed against my face, which cut into my eye and required $40,000 worth of surgery and almost a year to repair. Not to mention the 53 external and over 100 internal stiches to my face. The thing is, this was just minor words between two guys ("hey, I was sitting there" - "well I'm sitting here now" type stuff) until the kid hauled off and smashed me in the head. I jumped him and was in the process of beating him like a red headed step child when the bartender grabbed me and said "Jeff, don't worry about him, you better look in the mirror and worry about yourself". A total of over 12 hours surgery at 2 different hospitals restored about 60% of my vision.

Moral of the story - Walk away (or get in the first punch), cause you never know what a psycho is going to do. I always tell how I used to hang out in the rottenest punk bars in Boston and New York (the Rat, the Continental, CBGB's) and nver had a problem, but I go to Wilkes-Barre PA and get my eye cut out.

 

[Scott McGillivray]

Great stories guys!

Jeff, I feel for you man. I pray that you are doing okay now. I think Jeff is right about the walking away bit. Fighting in real life is NOT like the movies. Full-force punches to the face not only hurt, they can kill! Recently happened out here in my small town. Simple fight, guy takes a big shot to the head and it killed him. I just could not live with that.

The other problem these days, as many have pointed out, is that people just don't give a shit about each other. I mean, I have no real problem duking it out with someone if it is warranted, but I actually have more fear of killing/maiming the other guy than getting hurt myself. But it seems that there is a good percentage of cowardly backstabbing (insert string of foul words here) that have no care or concern. They will, like in Jeffs' case, hit you with any weapon they can, regardless of the potential damage.

In my case, I was in a fight at a large outdoor concert. One big drunk idiot was dancing backwards and just about elbowed my girlfriend in the face. I caught his arm and told him to watch where he was going. Well, of course he gets in my face and blah blah blah. I hold my temper and just tell him to get lost. Then his 2 buddies show up and the smack talk continues. I STILL hold my temper. Eventually, the big dick who started it shoves me as walks away and I still hold my temper. Well, his buddy stayed and just kept yapping at me until it came to blows. I dropped him quickly with several blows and then backed off (see I did not just sit there and smash his head in...it was over and I stopped). So, realizing that his "friends" would be after me, we headed back near the entrance where the security was. Well, that didn't stop these goons. The guy who started the whole thing walks up to me and gives me a quick shot to the mouth. I thought, "Wow...you hit like a girl...and I am going to destroy you!" But, before I could move, the prick I had just beat up snuck up behind me and smashed me over the head with a big rock. Luckily I didn't fall down or they would have laid the boots to me. I got them both in front of me and was ready to take the 2 of them on. I could feel the blood from my head just pouring out onto my white shirt (a pretty gruesome sight). Well, luckily before any more damage was done, security stepped in and then the RCMP (God bless the mounties!). No charges laid. Several stitches to the back of my head.

My point to all this is that one can never enter a fight without thinking that the other guy, or his friends, is going to be an evil coward and play dirty. I was lucky that I only got hit with a rock and not stabbed with a knife. Whatever happened to a good clean fight between 2 guys who can shake hands at the end and buy each other a beer?

Honour is a thing of the past for most.

 

[Mark Dubbelboer]

Scott, totally off topic here. Mounties always have these huge bulges on the sides of their pants. What's that all-about?

And when you went near security didn't they step in when someone clubbed you over the head with a rock?!?!?!

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

Best advice I ever heard about fighting:

Remember, the first good punch wins. Why? Because the first good punch stuns you long enough for the second one to land. The second one puts you on the ground. Then the kicking starts. You don't get up from the kicking.

Here's my amusing story. Not bar related, but certainly in line with some of these stories.

I was at my HS senior formal; kind of like a prom, for you Americans, I suppose. In HS, I was still a scrawny little geek (as opposed to now, when I'm a bigger geek but I was having fun. Anywho, one of the local jocks is chasing around some girl; I thought they were just having fun. But at one point, he bumps into me, running after her. So I say, quite conversationally, 'woah, watch where you're going there, buddy.' He stops, and the room gets quiet. I don't know if it really did, but it seemed to. I saw then, he was drunk. "What did you say to me?" he says. "Watch where you're going," says I.

So he reaches out, grabs a huge handful of shirt, and lifts me off the ground. "You don't talk to me like that, boy." I, feeling "in the moment," and knowing I can take this guy drunk, look at his fist, look back at him, and say, clear and straight voiced, "You're wrinkling the tux, and it's a rental. Let go."

Just then, the actual boyfriend of this girl comes up, and he's HUGE. He, literally, picks up this jock, who's still holding me up. "So why were you chasing after my girl?"

Two of my buddies took the opportunity to grab me and hustle me off to the washroom, where the adreneline wore off and the shaking started.

Epiloge:
About a year later, I was getting a ride from one of two said buddies, and the the conversation turned to that night. "Shayne, we were all really impressed how you stood up for that girl's honor." I was confused. "What?" "Jen, you were defending her from that drunken asshole." "No, I wasn't. He bumped into me, I told him to watch it." "What? You mean you wern't defending her from that drunken bastard until somebody grabbed her boyfriend?" "No, I thought he *was* her boyfriend or something. He bumped into me, I told him to watch it, he took offense, it went from there."

Todd started laughing so hard at that, he almost ran off the road.

 

[Scott Van Dyke]

Great story Mark. You made me laugh when you said you described your "gaurdian angel". That guy was probably happy to get in a free shot and walk away.

Do you still talk to Blake? Do you rip on him for that night? Did he pea himself?

Jeff, sorry about your mis-fortune.

Scott, not all people are ass-holes like you describe. In my fight, we all made up and nobody ever pulled a weapon. Only the ring-leader stayed an ass-hole, and wouldn't stop talking shit. The rest of them were all pretty happy that no-one from my side pulled a weapon. In the middle of the melee however, the one skinny younger dide did raise a coffee pot in the air like he was going to smash it against someone, but I talked him out of it. I believe my words across the room were something like, "Dude put that down... That shit's expensive!"

Anyway, you should always have someone watching your back if possible. You guys are right about the cheap weapons and lack of old-fashioned rules of fighting. I guess we were just lucky that night.

Side note- This all happened right after my buddy Ron and "Big" Mike left for the night. Maybe 20 minutes later. Ron might have held his own at 50 yrs. old, but Mike was 34, and about 375 lbs. They didn't stop shaking their heads at this story for a couple of years.:frowning:

And by the way, let's keep away from all the moral preaching about how fighting is wrong... I think this board is full of intelligent enough people. Let's stick to the juicy stories from when we were all younger!

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Thanks for the thoughts, I'm doing fine - this was all 10 years ago. It is correct that people today (I'm 38, so I have some perspective) are more willing to grab a weapon than they were in years past. When I was a kid, if you picked up a weapon during a fight, you were called a certain derogatory term that began with 'p' and rhymed with "ussy". No matter how big the other guy was, unless he went psycho and pulled a knife, you fought with fists and if you were outmatched, you took the beating like a man.

Two more -

The most embarrasing fight I ever had was in high school. My buddy had literally knocked out this kid who was tormenting him. This guys's friend (who was an ape) decided to take revenge by picking on me (neither me or my buddy weighed over 150lbs, but we were scrappy). Not scrappy enough, because this kid beat the daylights out of me. When we went to see the vice-principal (a good friend of my father's) he immediately asked if I was hurt. I put up a good front, mumbling "no" through my bleeding lips and gums. He turned to the guy that administered the beating and asked "How about you, are you hurt anywhere?". The ape replied "Just my hands". I wanted to crawl in a hole and die.

Another time I was coming home from partying on Lansdowne St. (right near Fenway Park). Remember the fight scene in "Good Will Hunting"? Well, anyone from Boston will tell you that it's pretty much spot on in describing guys from Southie. My buddy went behind a fence to relieve himself and I ran into 4 guys from Southie. They called me a disparaging name and it was on. I got the first shot on the first guy I grabbed (see, the advice works). I swung him around onto the hood of a car and hammered. I distinctly remember his teeth going down his throat. That is all I remember until the 4th guy pulled the 2nd and 3rd guys off me. I believe the legal term for what I suffered is "assault with a shod foot". The 4th guy was huge, but he had some honor and busted on his friends for not taking me on one at a time. I was bleeding red all the ride home and was black, blue, green and yellow for days. My father, recognizing a beating when he saw it, asked "How did the other gang look?".

 

[Holadem]

When I was a kid, if you picked up a weapon during a fight, you were called a certain derogatory term that began with 'p' and rhymed with "ussy". No matter how big the other guy was, unless he went psycho and pulled a knife, you fought with fists and if you were outmatched, you took the beating like a man.

I for one don't miss it. This kind of attitude encouraged stupid behavior in the name of "honor".

People are less inclined to fight when they know there is a very real chance they will die.

--
Holadem

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Holadem,

I would much rather have suffered a beating from the guy who attacked me and cut out my eye. Remember, the guy who smashed me in the face with a glass thought he was standing up for his "honor" also. He was just too much of a coward to risk losing, so he used a weapon. Myself, I have never started a fight (the incident with the boys from Southie was not me starting a fight, it was 4 guys looking for a fight and me not prolonging the inevitable). I'm actually a mild mannered guy that trouble seemed to follow around for a while.

And by the way, let's keep away from all the moral preaching about how fighting is wrong... I think this board is full of intelligent enough people. Let's stick to the juicy stories from when we were all younger!

I agree.

 

[Scott Leopold]

I guess I'm lucky that I've never been in an actual fight, although I came pretty close quite a few times. The closest I came to a brawl was when I was 17 or 18. A cousin of mine had a group of friends who were all about 13-15 years old. He liked hanging around them because he could impress them with his BS. There was a girl in the kids' neighborhood of rather loose morals, and apparently she was rather friendly with nearly every guy around. This did not include my cousin, despite his stories to the contrary. His little friends all believed his claims that he was her exclusive boyfriend, although my understanding is that "exclusive boyfriend" wasn't a phrase with which she was familiar. The truth of the matter was that the closest thing she had to an exclusive boyfriend at the time was this pair of brothers from down the block.

It so happened that I was hanging out with my cousin one weekend, and he insisted on visiting his little friends. While we were there, they mentioned to him that they saw his alleged girlfriend enter the brothers' house. She'd been there for a while, and they suggested picking a fight with them so that they'd leave the girl alone. I had no interest in it since it was a pointless fight--I saw no reason to defend my cousin's "honor", since it was based on a lie. Still, they called the brothers on the phone. It took several times to get through because, as it turned out, the threesome was indisposed at the time. The guys were pretty upset that their fun had been interrupted, and they were more than willing to come down and bust someone's skull. Just as the kid who placed the call was hanging up, he told them that "we" weren't afraid of them since "we" had someone with "us" bigger than the both of them. Of course, they were talking about me.

To this day, I'm not sure why they thought I'd help them in the fight. I'd been telling them all along that I wanted nothing to do with it. When I saw the guys they wanted to fight, I really didn't want to be involved. At the time, I was about 6'3", and about 300 lbs. Regardless, I was nowhere near as big as these two. The short one had at least two inches on me, and each outweighed me by at least 50 lbs. They were quite massive, and looked very mean. Even with the help of my cousin--who was about 175 and had a bad knee--and his four friends, the biggest of whom was maybe 140, there was no way we could have taken these guys. The fact that they expected me to do it on my own was comical.

The bigger of the two yelled at us and wanted to know what was going on. The youngest of the little friends let him know that my cousin didn't like them messing with "his girl", and they were going to have me kick both their asses over it. They looked at me like they were going to kill me. I quickly walked up to them with my hands up in a totally non-agressive posture and told them to settle down for a second. I explained that I didn't know what their deal was, and that it was absolutley none of my business. I said that I had no clue why these kids thought I would fight them, but I had no intention of getting involved. I then told the two guys that if they wanted to beat the hell out of all five of them, I'd just sit back and watch. I added that if they hurt my cousin too badly, I'd step in and ask them to stop, but they could beat on the other four as much as they wanted. By this time, my cousin and two of his little friends were standing up on the porch, trying to blend into the background--the other two were hiding inside.

After I'd explained things to them, the two guys had calmed down and actually got a kick out of the situation--or at least out of the fact that I'd been offered up to take them both on. They said they'd let things slide this time, but next time they'd kill any of these punks who bothered them. They then stood there talking and joking with me for a few more minutes, and I shook both their hands as they left. Following this, I wasn't welcome around my cousin's little friends anymore (not that that bothered me much).

 

[David McGough]

Great Stories.. here is mine
About 5 years ago the guys had a guy thing. A trip to the river ever winter to stay at this guys cabin on the Tennessee river. Stripe fish, mainly drink beer, whiskey
We always go to this local tavern. The name changes about every year. This year it was named the Golden Spur, a real
dump of a place but really had a neat set up.
Its been a bar for 30 years.. We went in from a day on the river. We knew the bartender as he remembered us. He had some white lighting and we drank to General Lee. Now Im not much on corn liquor but had a few sips. I already had a good buzz..
Were settling in about 8 of us, a band started playing
folks dancing. I mean KUNTRY as country could be. The ladies
were something else, ruffer than a 2 day old corn cobb from the out house... Were just a watching everything we blend in fine not problems... This one gal came out of the bath room and she had a 6' trail of toilet paper from were she thought she had finished wiping her butt. The paper got caught in her pants when she raised them back on.
She did not know it was there
she was DRUNK.. Ugly as Ugly could be, I had to get her on the dance floor. I did and it was the funnies thing you ever saw...The gal never knew it was there but everybody else did.
Ok the FIGHT... The band was playing and this fellow who was not in the band got up and started sing to this couple sitting at a table. He sang the words,, your wifes a whore
and she sucked la de da ##@@@@@$$ and went on.
He came off that stage and from behind a fellow hit him with a pool cue and broke it.
These 3 guys starting fighting, punching knocking the tar out of each other. All of a sudden
This other girl from who knows were pulls out a 38 and fires up in the ceiling and hits a wall..

Hot damn, I never seen a gun go off in a bar. We hit the damn floor and I liked to sheet all over my self. There aint but one way in and one way out of this building. I stayed on the floor, nasty floor at that and crawed out to the front.
The whole place went out side then comes the fight and kept on fighting with about 5 others.. Law came by then place had cleared out...
It was my only gun shooting in a bar

 

[David McGough]

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