FourOuncesToFreedom.com - January 13, 2008
Wanna Step Outside About It?
This past weekend I was in San Diego, my old home town, drinking at my old bar. A friend just moved there and I was introducing her around, trying to make her some friends so she doesn't get all lonely start listening to The Best of Morrissey while carving topographical maps into her wrists.
An old training partner of mine, Shane, was talking to me about fighting and some portly Mexican at the pool table happened to overhear us.
Mexican: Where do you train?
Jeff: L.A.
My answer is terse. I'm busy playing pool and I'm in the zone.
Mexican: (smugly) I train at Undisputed.
I used to train at Undisputed. I physically helped put up walls there and was training in that place before the doors ever opened.
Jeff: Never heard of it.
This earns me some smiles and laughs from a handful of friends around the pool table. Three of them have trained there with me and know that I think very highly of the gym. This may even be an understatement. I shout that gym's praises to anyone who will listen and sometimes even to those who won't.
Mexican: (looking annoyed) It's a big gym, eh. Good place.
Jeff: I dunno man. I've never heard of that joint.
Mexican: (pissed) Yeah, well the bouncers here have. They train there.
I worked at this bar as a bouncer for two years. I trained one of the guys he's pointing to when he was hired. The other replaced me. He doesn't know this. Probably doesn't know much of anything. He certainly doesn't know that only one of the those bouncers trains at Undisputed and that the other trains primarily at Krispy Kreme.
Jeff: Those bouncers? Man, they look kind of weak...
Mexican: (fists clenched) You want to go outside about it?
This phrase doesn't make grammatical sense, but I know what he means. I chuckle a little and go back to my game of pool. Some people are retards.
The Mexican wanders off around the table and I continue my game. In between shots I see Shane talking to the Mexican. Shane is talking to him, but he's not looking at Shane. The guy is staring holes through my chest. I wonder if I may have to "go outside about it." I finish my game, racking up another win, and Shane walks over.
Shane: That guy was saying he might have to beat your ass. I told him you were fucking with him, that we both train there, know everyone, and that you were hanging the bags before most people had even heard of that gym.
Jeff: Jesus, what a jackass.
Shane: Oh, that wasn't enough. He started quizzing me, asking if I knew this fighter and that fighter, the owners, everyone.
Jeff: You pass the test?
Shane: I guess not. He got on the phone with someone at the gym and asked me for my name to verify that I was "legit."
Jeff: He called the fucking gym?!?
Shane: (laughing) Yeah, I know!
Jeff: I guess he wanted to make sure he didn't have to kick our asses.
Shane: Thank god for that.
Jeff: Thank god.
When I later checked the Mexican was nowhere to be seen. He was probably running our pictures by someone at the gym's front desk and checking DNA samples from the Bud Light bottles against sweat-filled wraps.
Support your local gym, your local MMA fighter, and your local fight organization. Have respect for the guys who train you and pride in the place that teaches you your craft. But don't be a douchebag.
If you want to talk shit with someone over training centers, chances are you're the insecure one or have just gotten into fighting. The louder you are about your training and the more you want to spout off about how much better you are and who you know, the greater the chances that the quiet and respectful guy in the corner is going to beat the everliving shit out of you.
Be humble, lest you be humbled.
Of course, maybe the lesson is that I shouldn't be a sarcastic dick, lest I have douchebags threaten to beat my ass. Either way, there is certainly a lesson to be learned somewhere.
Posted by Jeff at 11:36 AM