Team Fighting Championship (TFC) is a new, rather brutal sport that originated in Latvia and is gaining popularity in other European countries as well. Two four or five-member teams face each other in a ring, beating the living daylights out of each other until all the members of a team are down.

The fights are held in a 40×40 ring set up in an empty 30,000-sq.ft. warehouse, in an undisclosed location in Latvia, with no audience present. Five referees stationed inside the ring supervise the fight, but the rules are so relaxed that the refs can’t really stop fighters from inflicting serious damage. Players use moves from various fighting styles, they get kicked when they’re down, and at times two or more men gang up against one opponent. The fights are so vicious that they only last a few minutes, with most participants leaving the ring bleeding or unconscious.

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The East Bay Rats, a legendary motorcycle club in Oakland offers an innovative solution to barroom brawls – Fight Parties. Since 1996, the club has organised Friday Fight Nights – putting potential troublemakers (and anyone else who volunteers) in a boxing ring at the clubhouse and giving them a chance to work the violence out of their system.

According to East Bay Rats founder Trevor Latham, everybody has a violent streak in them and Fight Nights give people a safe space to test the limit of their courage. “Why not?” he asked. “The worst that can happen is you get a bloody nose.”

Over the years, Friday Fight Nights have become insanely popular, with the courtyard around the ring jam packed with spectators. Everyone who wants to fight gets a chance – it’s usually guys vs. guys and women vs. women, but you don’t have to be a professional fighter to get into the ring.  Participants range from bartenders and photographers, to bodybuilders, college students, lab technicians or musicians. That’s what this tradition is all about – real fights between real people.

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Here’s a real treat for all you MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fans. It’s called Team Fighting Championship, and it’s played using standard MMA rules, sort of. The sport involves two teams of five members, who basically have a go at each other in a big ring as soon as the referee blows his whistle. The MMA-style fights usually start as one-on-one, with each member singling out an opponent, but as competitors are forced to tap out of the fight, contests can become two-on-one, or even five-on-one.

A video clip of a Team Fighting Championship (TFC) match has been doing the rounds on the internet. It starts off with a group of scantily clad women doing a seductive dance. Then, an announcer comes on the ring to introduce the teams – LPH from Poznan, Poland and the Wisemen from Gothenburg, Sweden. They all stand in the ring opposite each other. When the announcer blows the whistle, they’re all instantly at each other’s throats. Soon, some of the fighters are pinned to the ground while the others punch them repeatedly and rather mercilessly. And there’s only one rule for winning – take out all the members of the opposing team.

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In a world where prisoners’ sentences are reduced for good behavior, the rules at Klong Prem Central Prison, in Thailand, come across as bizarre. They basically have it the other way around – inmates battle foreign fighters in a tournament called ‘Prison Fight’, a charity event organized by Thailand’s Department of Corrections. The organized boxing matches, held regularly across various Thai prisons, give them a shot at reducing their sentences or even gaining their freedom.

Winning inmates receive prize money as well as the chance to meet with the warden to have their sentence reduced. Needless to say, the Thai prisoners win at least 9 out of 10 fights, both because they are eager to get out of confinement and because most of them have years of experience. But they also need to have a track record of good behavior to be let off the hook.

“Prison fights are done to help the prisoners. It lets the prisoners fight so they can earn money,” said Mr. Pek, Prison Fights coordinator. “They also fight to reduce the time of their sentences. To reduce their sentence and to bring honor and fame to Thailand, if they can defeat foreign fighters and fight a lot. Some of the fighters are in for drugs, robbery or murder. There are boxers doing life or 50 years. There are boxers who can never get out.”

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It’s called Friday Night Throwdown, but most know it as the male model fight club, an unlicensed underground event that puts pretty boys in the ring with street fighters and real boxers. As you can imagine, models almost never win.

“I think it’s hilarious that the whole point of their being is to make money off what they look like, yet they’ll come throw down for a couple of hundred bucks,” one of the Friday Night Throwdown organizers says about the pretty boys who sign up to get their asses kicked for around $150. But for the people doing the fighting in the ring, the event is no joke. “I definitely tell everybody, ‘This is no bullshit. You’re about to get in front of 800 people. Get ready—and if you don’t, it’s still going to be entertaining for you to get your ass beat,’” the organizer says. And most of the models involved in this underground phenomenon take that advice very seriously. They train hard, and the fights have gotten more intense during the last two years that Friday Night Throwdown has been taking place in various downtown New York warehouses. It’s in the models’ financial interest to put up a good fight, because if the crowd likes them, they might get invited back and paid double or triple what they earned the first time. Still, despite their best efforts, only one male model has actually won a fight against a hardened fighter.

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