You know how things just pop in your mind from time to time that just make you crack up ? You could be doing anything. Working. Working out. Talking to someon. Eating. When all of the sudden it hits you. Some moment from your past.
I don’t know what triggered it, but all of the sudden I was remembering the last time I got into a fight. A fight where real punches were thrown. It was hysterical….
It probably was 15 years ago. I was in Dallas and we went down to the West End. A part of town that at the time had some fun bars and places to hang out.
It was about 4pm or so. I was with my buddies Ron and Scott and we were getting an early start on happy hour. We pulled up to what I remember as a bar with bar stools that looked out on the open court of the Mall area of the building. Me, Scott, Ron at the corner of the bar. I was sitting, they were standing.
Just off to the side where I guess the Mall part started, there was one of those old recording booths. You remember those booths they would have around malls where you could go in and basically do your own personal karaoke and they would record it and give you a tape of it ?
Well to our delight, there was a guy in one of the booths who decided he was going to sing and record Elvis tunes. Not only was he going to sing Elvis tunes, but he decided he needed to keep the door to the booth open so that a couple girls sitting by us could watch him sing.
As I remember it, he wasn’t that bad. But he was playing to these girls in a big way. Which we had no problem with. In fact we thought it was hysterical. THe more he sang and tried to impress these women with his Elvis voice and his Elvis facial contortions, the more we laughed. The longer he went , the more we couldn’t stop laughing.
Then it happened.
No, he didnt run out and throw a punch. I remember it vividly. He turned his attention away from the girls and looked directly at me and sang to me:
“I challenge you to a sing off, I challenge you to a sing off “
Yep, the guy singing Elvis in the cassette tape recording booth was looking me right in the eye, giving me the crooked lip and singing an Elvis singoff challenge to me. We couldn’t help ourselves. We were laughing so hard we were near convulsions. Then it happened.
There was a guy sitting to my right that I hadn’t really noticed. I guess I glanced over towards him to see if he was laughing as hard as we were. He wasn’t. What he was doing was in the process of standing and throwing a punch (i couldnt tell if it were jab, roundhouse or ?). The dude sucker-punched me. While i was laughing my ass off. Right in the midst of an Elvis Singoff Challenge.
My buddy Ron saw it coming before I did and was up and pushed him back off balance just enough for me to stand and start throwing those wild bar fight type punches. All the while we are still laughing trying to figure out what was going on.
Im swinging. Im laughing. Ron and Scott are laughing. I remember landing a punch and him stumbling but not going down. He had to be pissed that some guy was laughing and hitting him at the same time
It probably wasnt 30 seconds into it that the Cops showed up and had pulled me away.. At which point having to explain to the cops what had just happened caused us all to start laughing again.
Turns out the guy who suckerpunched me was a buddy of the guy singing. I guess he took his Elvis far more seriously than we did.
At the suggestion of the Police Officers, who by that time were trying not to laugh, the 3 of us left via the back elevator…
And here i sit years later , with a big smile on my face, memorializing my last fist fight
GO SPURS,
Slow down, and stop your attack of our military guys. I saw that film, and it was really one sided. Try to stay with your attempt to win basketball games. You seem to lose either way. San Antonio Spurs beat you guys and you go off and make an anti american movie. whats up with that?
You still think you can do it on your on. Maybe move to France? They have the white flag? Or just move to San Antonio, and then you can learn how to do both! I love our freedom and wish you did too. Stop playing with your self.
God Bless you and all that fight for freedom,
dp
Comment by Dan -
have a follow-up question:
Why does it take newspapers an additional 4 weeks to handle color comics? Why do they want 4 weeks work in advance any way? Most of the newspapers I\’ve read manage to get reasonably current events on their front page within a day or 2 of the event
Comment by tercme -
You\’re a wild man, Cuban. hahahaha. . . a wild one.
Comment by Rob -
That was good stuff. Mine was years and years ago in Junior High. A friend was mouthing off and the other guy came after him. My buddy was getting it pretty good and he was much smaller than the other guy so I told him to pick on someone his own size.
The guy comes after me and I put him in a headlock. After he squirmed for a bit, I sort of tossed him to the side and into a bush. He ran away.
This happened near some small businesses. As we walked away, some of the people there came out and gave me an applause.
Anyway, thanks for the laughs.
Comment by ChrisCD -
I don\’t remember feeling any pain when he caught my lip with hs fist, raking it against my braces and causing blood to spurt out all over my shirt.
Comment by TV Stand -
MC, do you play tennis? Did you play tennis a couple weeks ago in vegas with this guys named Adrian?
Comment by Austin M. -
You, my stupid hillbilly friend, are retarded! You, Ron and Scott probably went and had gay sex after that, huh? Who isnt gay that laughs at elvis and mis-spells like a third grader?! You probably got your ass handed to you and that, would have made this story more interesting. If you got a good punch in, then why didnt it drop his ass? Oh! Yeah! Gays fight like girls! You must be a gay or a girl but, not a gay girl. Then you would have knocked him out, FAG! FUCK YOU!
Comment by Aron Granier -
The whole thing lasted 20 seconds, tops with a total of 3 hits, unblocked and unexpected. Campus security came, and eventually made the guys pack up and leave campus because there were 15 individual complaints against them for trying to start a fight. We got away with everything, as it was reported as self-defense on our part.
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Comment by rslaods1 -
You do own a cool plane!
http://www.myeclinic.com
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Comment by rslaods1 -
You must crackup like that everyday when you remember you sold Broadcast.com for billions of dollars.
Comment by Rick -
i think the Seattle Supersonics\’ owner is feeling sucker-punched right now. any comments on the big fine?
Comment by Glenn Laudenslager -
Maybe you were thinking about the upcoming fight for the Cubs?
Comment by David in Chicago -
What did you learn from this experience? This is what I call the \”Always Look For The Buddy\” rule.
Comment by George Potts -
Mark – this is great. To come here to your blog and see the \”human-side\” of a man that most know through TV and the Mavs. Just classic.
Comment by Michael -
Do we not have better things to do?
Comment by Detlef Schrempf -
it wasn\’t elvis, i was singing tom jones. and by the way, those ladies gave me their panties later.
Comment by jeff -
Last time I had a fist fight I was in grade school. I found out pretty early that a fist fight was a very expensive and risky way to settle disputes. Intimidation works much better…lol 🙂
Comment by Antonio Howell -
That sounds like a memory that should\’ve had pictures, lol.
Comment by Sabrina\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s Money Matters -
Don\’t mess with Elvis impersonators, you\’ll get you every time!
Why do you think Vegas is such a ruff city? That\’s right, angry Elvis impersonators!
Comment by Tyler Wilson -
Hey Mark,
Here\’s another Sucker Punch ….
\” How bout them Warriors \”
and
\” ***** How bout them SPURS ***** \”
jake the snake !
Comment by Jake -
Do you play tennis in Vegas? If so, with a guy name Adrian?
Comment by Austin M. -
OMG, it was the funniest fist fight story I\’ve ever read! LOL
I simply had no stories like that. I\’ve never fought except a couple of angry faces and verbal expressions of indignation. But, well, I\’m a woman. I guess its\’s totally normal for us, LOL.
Good blog. Have a nice week 😉
Comment by Hormiga -
I learned I could take a punch, and I learned that I was tougher than the 110 lb. version of me thought I thought I was.
Comment by Tomy Tomica -
You should not fight! http://www.myeclinc.com
Comment by madison -
My last fight, I broke my own fist…turns out the top of the head is very very solid….
no more fights since…
Comment by Celebrity Hairstyles2007 -
That was a nice story. I remembered my fight. But I don\’t want to mention it in detail, it was so horrifying.
Comment by Clarks Shoes -
Hilarious. Not at all what I expected to find on your site today, but a total gem. Thank you for sharing it.
Comment by EricaLucci -
Mark,
What would be really funny if you got a post from the guy you got in the scuffle with. I know you don\’t usually reply to posts (atleast mine), but (out of curiosity) did this sudden recolection of your last fist fight stem from the recent news story about that woman who got into a fight in at a karaoke bar who got in a bral with a man for singing a coldplay song?
Comment by jpg -
Was probably Matt Sencio in the Elvis booth and one of his retarded friends from Holliston, MA as his back up at the bar.
Comment by Glen -
Hey Mark, that was a nice everyman kind of blog. Not too tech, not to financial, just an everyguy kind of post. As a smallerl kid I use to fight alot in high school which was quick respect from the bigger kids. My last fight came in college, and glad to say it was my only one. Felt quite embarrassed afterwards.
JCH from Philly
Comment by Jimmy CraicHead -
haha great story. maybe the guy ended up here?
Elvis \”tribute\” hopefuls vie for title:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR2007081700880.html
Comment by sam -
I actually wrote about my last fight awhile ago:
http://pointlessbanter.net/2006/07/20/druken-mistakes-vol-9/
You are right though, things like that come out of the blue. You will be sitting around and it just pops into your head, a random event that garnered a lot of laughs.
Comment by Kevin -
….you should have sang Jail House Rock as the police took you away.
Comment by John Taras -
Mark that was hilarious!! lol SIGN DENNIS RODMAN TO THE SUNS!! I dont even like the suns but he can had toughness to your team.
Comment by Eric -
I remember my last fist fight. It was about 15 years ago. My buddy and I were having our regular Elvis-off at a mall bar. Some geeky looking guys came in dropping the lame lines on any woman they could find in the bar.
Unfortunately for them the girls found our Elvis much more appealing. In the middle of my buddy\’s song one of the guys started heckling him. I shouted over for him to get up and sing and next thing I know he is diving across the tables fists a swinging. I backed up and warned him that he should be careful, but he was intent on fighting. Two punches later he was down and nearly out.
I let him up to save him further embarrassment. He kept shouting do you know who I am? I kept saying who cares. Then he shouted he was so rich he could buy my ass.
I shoved him to the side and left the bar, girls on each arm!
Next thing I know my company is bought out by some billionaire and I am fired leaving me unemployed and left to live a life of poverty performing Elvis on the streets. But at least I get the best of that punk!
Comment by Elvis II -
Hey Mark, I dont really remember the last time but I do remember how long it seems to last,epending on how well you are doing and how the next day you feel like , hmmm, not to bad. It must be like the genetic cave man thing that surfaces from time to time in people. It really gives a person a different perspective for guys you see in the square circle for three minutes at a time,when they are getting pounded or doing the pounding. I hear people say\” I could go three minutes with so and so\” Not in your life pal. Its still fun to hear though occasionally. Thanks for the thoughts
Comment by Frankie from Lawnside -
Quite honestly, Mark, I believe you were entitled to the sucker punch. Not for laughing at the guy, but for beinin a mall in the first place. What the hell\’s the matter with you?! 😉
Comment by Natron -
The last street fight I was in was like 2 1/2 years ago. My younger brother was out shooting his mouth somewhere and he comes up to me as I\’m walking out of my apartment and tells me that he\’s about to get jumped.
Some guys walk up and I try to play peacemaker… the next thing I know, we are getting our asses kicked by half of the Ohio University wrestling team.
I was able to defend myself all right, by my brother and my roommate both got booted in the face multiple times when they were down. I had to manually set in place my brother\’s severely broken nose.
Then like 10 minutes later my brother is out talking with some kid he knew from the wrestling team that wasn\’t there beating us up… so I walk down to make sure he doesn\’t take another beating.
And some little freshman wrestler looks at me in the eyes and goes… \”what the fuck are you looking at?\”… and mind you this was just 10 minutes after the very first time that I\’ve ever taken anything resembling a beating in public. And I think I said out loud… \”ahh fuck it.\” And then I just pulverized this poor little guy.
I put it on him pretty bad. I just couldn\’t believe he had the stones to confront me like that… I had to give him a beating for my mental health.
College was good times.
Comment by Matt Masterson -
Its good that you can laugh now but somehow to me, it doesn\’t that David Stern and Alan Silver aren\’t quite over it. Wow, who knew he could croon out a good Elvis?
Comment by John Botefuhr -
That was a great story! I love it when you blog about things not related to business or technology. Not that those posts suck, I just like to laugh.
Comment by Quirkee James -
my last fistfight wasn\’t really a fistfight.
ten years ago – i was seventeen – playing cyo ball out in queens, new york. it was for the big apple tournament – and we we playing in the queens championship to go to the all city tournament.
suffice it to say – i wasn\’t the most congenial of athletes at the time. i was talking a lot of trash to the guard opposing me – and I kept making fun of the fact that he had a lazy eye. he got frustrated. he held me to 3 points in the first half, but i kept complaining that the ball we were using was old and slippery. in the second half, with a different ball, i score 29 and i keep flirting with his girlfriend – seated nearby. a wink here and there to get under his skin. we win the game. he vows to see me afterwards. i\’m like, sure buddy.
sure enough, i step outside the gym later on and I swear tumbleweeds roll by and that old OK corral music plays. He\’s like, \”what\’s all that you were saying earlier?\” He\’s got like ten guys with him. I\’m like, \”what? I don\’t remember saying anything. great game by the way… all those turnovers, turnstyle defense? that\’s a good look.\” Being an undersized guard, this is usually the time when I look for the longest straightest stretch of pavement, confident I can outrun most attackers. There wasn\’t such a lane this time. So i revert to my default strategy – whenever confronted with multiples – it\’s a guaranteed loss. The goal is to get the weakest member of the group under you so you can pound him out while the rest pound you out – at least until you pass out or whatever. at least someone from the other side pays a price. So as they approach, I approach lazy eye and sock him hard in the face. He staggers back and everyone tries to pounce on me. I take off across from august martin high school towards baisley park – a place reputed to be filled with bodies of loudmouths like myself. Ironic, or merely coincidental… i don\’t know. I hear several loud popping sounds and duck instinctively. What feels like a hammer hits me moderately hard on the outside part of the right shoulder blade. I get into a dollar van on merrick blvd (having run the like 8 long blocks to get there)and ride it home – feeling simultaneously high on endorphins and weak… and wet – I realize that I\’m bleeding in the dollar van. I was shot in the right shoulderblade with a 22.
Since, then, being that I\’ve since developed a violent allergy to bullets – I let my jump shot do the talking. interestingly enough, my street name from about 7 years old was \”lucky\” or \”luck\”. Lived up to it after the fact, i guess.
shout out to dre and them from rochdale. sorry, flashbacks cause me to backslide.
Comment by blyx -
That\’s a great story…only you could get in a fight during an elvis singoff challenge!
Comment by Christina Crabtree -
It\’s the craziest thing….I just read some blog where an Elvis fan kicked the crap out of Mark Cuban at a mall bar…..
if that happens today we are looking at co-owners of the Mavs…
Comment by Chris -
It\’s the craziest thing….I just read some blog where an Elvis fan kicked the crap out of Mark Cuban at a mall bar…..
if that happens today we are looking at co-owners of the Mavs…
Comment by Chris -
Reminds me of the night the frat boy tried to pick-up Clawoman at Motley\’s Pub. Sitting at my table, drinking my beer, and trying to hit on my girl….then wanted to know what I was going to do about it. After I explained what happened and he got the bum\’s rush, his little buddy came up, asked if I was the one who hit that guy & proceeded to inform that it was his friend so he sucker-punched me. At that point you told me to quit fighting or I was going to have to leave. Shortly thereafter Carol took me home.
Comment by Coop -
Your comments: that was a very humiliating memory of a fight to share
with anybody
let alone to every body.i think i would keep elvis ass kicking to my
self.but it was funny though
Comment by leonel lopez avalos -
I think I just had a flashback….
1981… Bluebird … Bloomington, IN… Duke Tomatoes and the All Star Frogs were playing. We rumbled…I kicked your ass…. or did you kick my ass? Anyway… the band was good 🙂
Comment by Bill L -
I remember my last fight. It was in college in 1999, and a buddy came up to my room and was all bent about a group of guys starting crap with him. This group of 4 guys who were visiting from a junior college looking to transfer, were trying to start a fight with people on walking in the dorms. So my buddy gets me, and a couple other of us to go down with him. We walk in and immediately, one of the guys gets in my buddy\’s face and pushed him. I walked up to that guy and head butted him in the nose, and followed with a punch somewhere on the head (I think below the eye). I think I broke his nose because blood went everywhere, and he couldn\’t stop it. One of his friends was coming up to hit me, and another buddy of mine busted him in the face, and the other 2 guys back down.
The whole thing lasted 20 seconds, tops with a total of 3 hits, unblocked and unexpected. Campus security came, and eventually made the guys pack up and leave campus because there were 15 individual complaints against them for trying to start a fight. We got away with everything, as it was reported as self-defense on our part.
Comment by Nate -
You mean second-to-last. Your ass is mine, Cuban!
🙂
Comment by nick -
I remember my last (and also first and only fightas vividly as anything and it also happened 15 years ago. It was just about the end of sophomore year in high school, so I had just turned 16. I was still pretty small, maybe 5-8 and 110 pounds. This kid I knew from homeroom was talking trash out in the school\’s courtyard to a friend of mine who was bigger and taller than me. My friend got in his face, and the kid got nervous and claimed he was really talking to me. I had almost fought him once before but a friend broke it up. He tried to get in our way again but this time punches were already flying and he was getting hit. I don\’t remember feeling any pain when he caught my lip with hs fist, raking it against my braces and causing blood to spurt out all over my shirt. I stopped the fight right there, and of course the next day he told everyone he kicked my ass. I went to the nurse to get some ice and she told the dean. The dean called my dad and he left work to pick me up from school. I don\’t remember him being angry at all. I think he realized that I was a kid and stuff like that happened. I went to my 10 year reunion two years ago but I don\’t think he was there. Part of me was hoping he would show up. Not so I could fight him, that would have been pathetic, but out of curiousity. I wondered what it would be like to see someone you once punched in the face ten years later.
I don\’t recommend getting into a fight for the life experience to anyone, especially not to adults. Most adult men are strong enough to really hurt each other if they land a punch in the right place. But I did learn something valuable that day. I learned I could take a punch, and I learned that I was tougher than the 110 lb. version of me thought I thought I was. I also realized that I had a busted lip and messed up braces. I\’ve never been in a fight again. But I think about it every once in a while when I bite my lip and feel the mass of scar tissue that\’s still there.
Comment by Pete -
1981… Bluebird … Bloomington, IN… Duke Tomatoes and the All Star Frogs were playing. We rumbled…I kicked your ass…. or did you kick my ass? Anyway… the band was good 🙂
Comment by mike -
Somehow Mark, I just can\’t picture you scrapping! Great story though, I can\’t remember the last time I was in a fight that I actually fought back in lol.
Comment by Kray -
I am amazed that your last fist fight was 15 years ago. That is pretty good work considering how many times I\’m sure you\’ve been tempted to throw a punch or two since Elvis guy.
Comment by David -
Go out to a bar sometime when your in Sacramento on a road trip and you\’ll probably see some good action again…
Comment by Mitchell Blatt, Juiced Sports Blog.com -
MC: I was doing battle with some Cow from the UK on a wanky social network and my good friend came up with the following to describe her! To this day, when I think about exchange, I get absolutely hysterical with laughter. I was at DaSilvano with friends and spouse and the incident came to mind. I had to leave the table and go outside a spent about 5 minutes laughing hysterically alone, witnesses started laughing at my laughter. I composed myself and came back in and when I tried to explain my behaviour, I started to laugh again! My last cyber fight!
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Comment by Mary Clemente -