“Dog Brothers” Stick Fighting

“The diversity of people that come to this is quite broad, but somehow they discover a commonality” asserts Marc “Crafty Dog” Denny, the narrator of the above documentary and original founder of the sport in 1995. May I propose certifiable insanity as the “commonality” to which he refers? (Denny’s grey lamb-chop sideburns do nothing to detract from this theory.)

The name “Dog Brothers” is a complete misnomer. We’re not talking about “man’s best friend” or fraternal love, here. We’re talking about dudes wearing metal helmets and carrying solid-wood sticks with the intent of doing maximum damage to each other. On the surface, this form of competitive chaos seems to be a glorified version of fencing, until you actually watch the action develop, at which point you realize that this is fully-fledged MMA with the inclusion of wooden batons.

One of the many curious elements to be discovered on the official Dog Brothers website is a letter received by Marc Denny in May 1995 from the now-defunct WOW* promotions company in which Arthur Davie (co-founder of the UFC) writes “this stickfighting is just too extreme for the UFC format at this time,” and that “Perhaps like the UFC your type of fighting is just ahead of its time.” Fortunately, stick-fighting still remains “ahead of its time” in terms of public acceptance — which gives it a lot in common with Art Davie’s latest attempt at inventing a combat sport…

* This was the original acronym (“War of the Worlds“) intended for the UFC promotion.

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