In broad daylight, two bare-knuckled brawlers savagely duke it out in a grassy ring while dozens of teens cheer them on. Off in the distance, an adult holds the hand of a toddler, watching the fight as if it were a game of football. Rather suddenly, one of the fighters falls to the ground. But the battle does not cease; the victor straddles his opponent’s chest and continues to fire punch after punch into his face.

Although this may sound like a scene from a movie, it is not. It is a typical scene in a new extreme sport taking place across America—teen fight clubs. These illegal events pit boys and girls as young as 12 in hand-to-hand combat. Some are staged, with participants shaking hands before and after they fight; others are highly-violent gang assaults, with packs of youth mercilessly beating random people who clearly do not want to fight.

Many of these clubs operate not only for “fun,” but also for profit. Ringleaders will sometimes capture these brawls with video or cellphone cameras, set them to rap music, then sell homemade DVDs on the Internet. Other videos are posted on popular teen websites such as MySpace.com and YouTube.com. (Read our article “Blogs – and God’s Youth” in this issue to learn about the dangers of such websites.) These clubs offer the opportunity for a person to experience “15 minutes of fame” in an underground video.

These fights are orchestrated in much the same way as parties are: through word-of-mouth, phone calls and text messages. Text-messaging allows troublemakers to kindle minor disputes between teens at breakfast into full-scale brawls by lunchtime.

This has prompted the superintendent of one U.S. school district to ban all telecommunications devices for the 2006-07 school year, including cellphones, pagers, beepers, PDAs, digital and video cameras, MP3 and CD players, and video games. The ban covers 74 schools with 63,000 students, including a half-dozen high schools totaling 20,000 students. “We’ve concluded schools are for teaching and learning,” the superintendent said.

Those who participate in these events are often typical suburban high school students, not gang members or juvenile criminals. One Salt Lake City, Utah prosecutor said, “This is not something that just happens in poor neighborhoods. This crosses all socioeconomic bounds. It’s happening in middle-class and upper-middle-class environments.”

During one gruesome fight, a person fell and struck his head on a sidewalk, and was knocked unconscious. While the helpless teen’s arms jerked spasmodically—his eyes staring aimlessly upward—his opponent continued to belt him in the face. As the badly beaten teen was dragged away, his head left a bloody smear on the curb.

Despite scenes such as this, some believe there is nothing wrong with these events. Chuck Palahniuk, author of the 1996 novel Fight Club, which was the basis for the 1999 movie, stated, “God bless these kids. I hope they’re having a great time. I don’t think they’d be doing it if they weren’t having a great time.”

Source: USAToday