How Not To Prepare For a UFC Fight (or, Why You Don’t Hang Around Behind T.J. Maxx)

(If this is what's going on inside a T.J. Maxx, why would you even need to go out back to get into a fight?)

Several of you alerted us to this story from the Kitsap Sun in Washington about a twenty-two-year-old man who provoked a fight with a group of people because he was “preparing for the Ultimate Fighting Championship and ‘he needed to practice getting knocked out so he could prepare.’”  Normally we’d just point and laugh and move on, but this story has so many terrific details that you simply couldn’t make up.

For instance:

- The man started this fight by throwing rocks at a group of men who “ranged in age from 15 to 50,” who were all, for some reason or another, hanging out behind a T.J. Maxx at 7:40 pm on a weeknight.  Guess their fathers never told them that nothing good happens behind a T.J. Maxx, ever, to anyone.

- When the group of men wouldn’t give him the training bout he wanted, the man sucker punched one of them before pulling out a pocket knife and eventually “losing control of the weapon.”   That’s just embarrassing.

- When a cop arrived on the scene, the man told him that he’d never been in a fight before, which is oddly sad if you imagine him hanging his head in shame as he makes that admission.  But at least a law enforcement officer was there, so everything was fine after that, right?

- “Then a 15-year-old boy who had been among the group getting pelted by rocks walked up. The 22-year “immediately began approaching,” the boy “in an aggressive manner.” The deputy intervened and began to wrestle with the 22-year-old, eventually taking him to the ground before other deputies arrived.”

Well, that settles it.  Joe Silva’s just going to have to call this guy and tell him he’s not going to be making that Octagon debut after all.  Don't worry, Junie.  They'll find you another opponent soon.