The other day a friend of mine made a strange statement.

“I wanna fight people, dude. I want there to be a place where they give you like some boxing gloves and head pads, and then you just get into a cage with somebody else and fight. And pay ten bucks or something.”

Somewhat unorthodox, but whatever gets you through the day.

If he had gone to school in Dallas, it seems his little fantasy would have been a fairly common practice. Apparently, the principal and staff members at South Oak Cliff High School had just that set up, minus the head pads, boxing gloves, and the willingness of the participant.

This was their way of dealing with “troubled” students. Some try love, some try tough love, and apparently some try cage fights. I don’t know exactly what merited kids being thrown into the cage to fight as punishment, but I’m guessing things like cutting class isn’t a qualifier.

Either way, it was killing two birds with one stone. Bad kids get punished, and staff gets their entertainment. Maybe staff would even go home with a little extra money if they were the gambling type. That’s three birds.

It’s disgusting, I know, and it seems that anyone who was on the school staff and involved should be punished, without a doubt. But that doesn’t mean they’re completely to blame. For allowing it, and possibly supporting it, they are in the wrong, but who’s to say the kids involved didn’t support it at all?

See, I have a feeling it was the “bad” kids who were thrown in the cage, and I know quite a few “bad” kids who are the type of people I would expect to set something like that up, and do it of their own accord. Some youngsters do in fact have fun fighting each other.

A perfect example would be my friend who wants to pay ten dollars to cage fight. It’s a way to release that many people enjoy, believe it or not.

I am not at all trying to stand up for the school staff involved in this scandal (if the scandal is actually true; there’s still a lot of denial on the defendants parts). They are without a doubt in the wrong, if only for knowing about what was going on and allowing it. But I do think there’s a possibility that the situation isn’t one sided, and there may have been some students running that extra curricular program as well.
—Silvano Pontoniere