Drunken Master XXX

A couple of weeks ago, the principal of Franklin Elementary School in Santa Monica banned the game of tag during recess. Last year, a controversy erupted over the social, physical and psychological dangers of dodge ball. Are we becoming a nation of wimps? Not according to Mean Brown Al and Mad Casey, proprietors of Drunken Match, a Sacramento-based outlet for the aggression-repressed masses.

“I hate to say it, but violence is comedy,” says Mean Brown Al. “When someone trips and falls down, people laugh at that—especially when they see that you’re not hurt. That’s how I see Drunken Match. We’re putting out entertainment; we’re not trying to get anyone’s head busted. People are too drunk to hurt anyone that bad, anyway, and we make sure of it. If you can barely stand up, you’re ready to fight.”

Drunken Match and its corresponding Web site, www.drunkenmatch.com, were launched formally by Mean Brown Al and Mad Casey, friends since junior high, a couple of years ago as a ply to recapture youth lost by men and women now weighed down by the responsibilities of jobs, family and bills.

“We used to get drunk and stuff and have our disagreements. You know, teenage-boy stuff,” says Mean Brown Al of his adolescence. “We’d take it outside, sometimes it didn’t make it outside, [and] we’d go at it. And when we got tired or one of us would give up—'All right, I’m done’—we’d go back into the house, have a smoke. We’re done. That happened about three times a month for what, three years?” He laughs.

Mean Brown Al is a gregarious man who ends most of his sentences with an honest and hearty laugh. Recently, he got laid off from the job he’d had for seven years; he plans to attend City College this fall. Mad Casey, a married man and new father, works with computers for a major Sacramento corporation.

Mad Casey explains the reasoning behind Drunken Match.

“We were just talking one day,” he says, “and we were like, ‘Man, you know what? We should set out our video—we could get some great footage, just some drunk people going at it [who] don’t know what they are doing.’”

The 33 matches on the CD-ROM that Mad Casey generously supplied were seriously funny. Stumbling, drunken fighters with names like Super Dave, Steel Pits, Shade, Lucky Strike, SuperFly McMon’d, Sam G., Fausto de Fuertes, Big J, The Precious One and Kevin (who evidently didn’t come up with a fighting name) face off, swinging wildly, falling over and connecting once in a while, much to the satisfaction and laughter of the audience. The loosely kept time is supposed to consist of three rounds of three-minutes each, but often the bell is rung when the two fighters need a break. It’s not unusual for a fighter to vomit between and during rounds, much to the cheers of the spectators.

“A lot of people were saying, ‘Oh, you guys are Fight Club, it’s Fight Club!’ ” says Mean Brown. “Oh my God, man! We were doing this long before that movie came out.”

When the time is right—convenient to them, their families, the weather and the neighborhood situation—Mean Brown and Mad Casey put on Drunken Match, and regular Joes and Janes who have had a few too many drinks put on the gloves, bite down on the mouthpiece and go one-on-one with a random opponent. The Drunken Matches are digitally filmed with two cameras and put up on the drunkenmatch.com Web site. Thirty-four matches are currently on the site.

The first Drunken Match of the new season took place the weekend before last at Mean Brown Al’s. His modest home is located in a fairly quiet neighborhood not far from downtown Sacramento. From outside, no sounds of drunken debauchery or merrymaking could be detected. Mean Brown Al answered the door, and inside some young guys were quietly watching a homemade music video. One fighter, El Desvariado, was sitting at a computer, and in the backyard a barbecue grill was being fired up as a half-dozen guys stood around talking.

“We’ve yet to have an incident where people got upset and left mad with bad blood or anything,” says Mean Brown. “They show my house a lot of respect; Casey and me a lot of respect. I don’t charge nobody anything, but if you come over in a group, I just ask that one of you fight.”

A section of the backyard serves as the ring. Raked dirt serves as the mat and two adjoining rickety fences make up half the ring with a homemade turnbuckle in the corner. The other half of the ring is a line in the dirt. Because the yard has several shade trees, industrial lights are set up on tripods to help the cameras. An antique bell sits by a tree; on a table rests fifths of tequila and Wild Turkey. Twenty-seven pairs of boxing gloves, ranging from 4 oz to 16 oz, surround three shot glasses. Liquid courage.

“It’s a pain in the ass to prepare for it,” says the soft-spoken Mad Casey. “But the minute you get everyone there and we start partying and get the fights on, we have a blast. We just visually look at people, and if you’re slurring and swerving, get in the ring buddy, it’s time.”

“A guy got punched through my fence once,” says Mean Brown, laughing. “Big metal poles got snapped. Luckily, I got cool neighbors. Everyone on my street knows what I do. Repeatedly I’ve had my neighbors ask, ‘When are the fights starting up?’ ”

As time goes by, men and women show up for the matches. The atmosphere is mellow and friendly. Every ethnic group and age group are represented except for minors, who aren’t allowed. Veteran fighters like Sam G., the Precious One and Kevin are there, but they’re not fighting today for one reason or another.

Sam G. resembles Adam Sandler, except Sam is more likeable and funnier. His natural good nature masks the fact that he holds a blue belt in some obscure martial art.

“I don’t fight on the streets,” said Sam. “I think that I’m a classy guy, but if you want to fight I’m going to break your arm and choke your ass.”

Asked why he wasn’t fighting that day, Sam shows the thumb he claimed that he hurt at practice. “Look, can you see the fluid?”

No one thinks that it’s swollen and he gets jived from a handful of people.

Mean Brown Al and Mad Casey are nervous. Only four people are willing to fight at the moment, and so they start the event with a four-man match.

Mean Brown Al, Mad Casey, El Desvariado and Crown Rory all get in the ring and rumble. Punches are thrown, fighters fall or get knocked down and one by one they leave the ring with El Desvariado the only man left standing.

Mean Brown Al sits in a chair in the corner of the ring. Blood is dripping from his nose onto his shit-eating grin. “I don’t want to see anyone get hurt, because that’s not what it’s really about. Drunken Match is more about comedy and entertainment than it is about seeing people beat each other senseless. When you’re drunk and buzzing, you are so busy trying to keep yourself balanced and not on the ground, you’re lucky to land a punch, let alone a KO punch.”

A first-timer to Drunken Match, Ty-Stick gets the gloves on to fight the dreadlocked champion, El Desvariado.

El Desvariado can take punches to the head until the Kings win an NBA championship, but Ty-Stick gets in a hard stomach punch and El Desvariado holds his gut with one hand and raises his glove with the other. The bell is rung. In his corner Ty-Stick gasps for air, while El Desvariado vomits ringside. The fight goes on to a draw.

El Desvariado, a tattoo artist and self-described happy drunk, sits with Ty-Stick and they talk over the fight and life in general. Everyone is in a good mood, with fighters and spectators talking to each other as barbecued hot dogs and burgers come off the grill.

“When I fight in Drunken Match it makes me feel like a teenager again,” says Mean Brown Al. “Even though I’m sore as shit the next day, I’m glad that I can still do that. One of these days I won’t be able to do it. So I figure as long as I can keep that mentality and keep it up at least once in a while, I won’t feel like an old fart anymore.”