Posted By Jack Rusher.
I am the third party who was holding Omar’s camera when the unscheduled JFS v OS fight happened, just getting home to NYC now.
The bad news is that the footage from the fight probably sucks and likely doesn’t contain everything you guys would want to see to clear up what happened. Arguing will continue even if Omar does post the video (he said this morning, just after this went down, that he would).
There is no good news, but I’ll post what I saw for the record.
First, I should probably mention that I always liked Anna and Omar on the various forums, and although JFS has presented a Jekyll and Hyde thing (half lovable crotchety grandpa at TD events, half raving nutter), I’d heard from everyone that he was more Jekyll than Hyde offline. Most people are.
I took the flaming dragon bus down from NYC to see my mother, who is presently in Baltimore, do some sailing with a friend who has a boat in the harbor, and to show up to this foolishness in a neutral capacity (where was everyone else, by the way?). I thought everyone would be cooler-headed in person, probably they’d fight hard under a minimal ruleset, then I’d get to cross hands (in a friendly way) with Omar to find out if he learned anything cool in China, and then we’d go drink some beer, maybe eat something.
Omar posted his email address ages ago, I wrote to him, he sent me his number, I called to get directions from JFS’s girlfriend (Pain in the Donkey), then went over there. There was no one from either camp in the car park when I arrived, so I walked over the road to JFS’s apartment (included in the aforementioned directions), met up with JFS and Omar, walked back.
Omar is a smallish fellow, kinda quiet, seems quite nice. He is rather like his online persona in most regards. He didn’t seem very interested in fighting anyone, preferring a friendly test of skill sort of thing. That said, I don’t think he was scared or trying to duck the fight.
We walked to the car park, the Atlanta crew was there. Anna’s hands were taped and she was obviously ready to fight, but she didn’t like the venue. She told JFS this, and he went all Hyde and began yelling a stream of obscenities. Back and forth, blah, blah, blah. Very pro wrestling, not at all constructive. I butted in a few times to suggest that fighting on grass wouldn’t be such a bad idea, and to ask why re-locating was such a problem. As an aside, JFS was friendly and calm with me through the entire weird scene, even alternating between conversing with me as Jekyll and shouting at Anna as Hyde. This was disconcerting, and I have no idea why he was acting this way. I don’t think any of us, even Omar, liked to see JFS – who is a very big dude, over six feet and near as I can guess ~17 stone (109 kg, 240 lbs) – trying to bully Anna. I became disappointed in Omar for not taking the lead – it’s his fight, not JFS’s.
[ N.B. I didn’t get much of this on camera because barking isn’t to my tastes. There’s probably 15 minutes of audio over shots of the tarmac on this part of the tape. ]
After several go-arounds, JFS and Omar walked to one side of the car park and more or less drew a line in the sand. I walked over and tried to convince them to change venue, be reasonable, and so on. Anna said something that set off JFS, who went over yelling and bullying. I started to wonder whether he was going to do something physical, thinking about how that would turn into everyone against JFS (because, c’mon), and then something happened. I did not at the time know what happened because I was behind JFS and twenty paces away. It looked to me like he had raised his hand to waggle his finger in her face or some other foolishness like that. It was then that OS (who could see what was happening from where he was standing) came running in with a really goofy flying something or another that bounced off JFS and left OS ass-on-tarmac.
I was worried for OS’s health at that point because it was hard for me to imagine why someone who knows how to fight would lead with something as silly as a flying kick, but… he got up, clinched with JFS and did a double-leg takedown before either of them landed a punch.
JFS seemed to go for a guillotine that turned into a headlock as they fell to the pavement with OS mounted on JFS, his chin tucked, breathing short, rapid breaths.
I walked over to the pair, watching the fight, tried to catch it on camera, but I’m not sure how clear the footage is. Omar took the camera and started filming more carefully somewhere around here.
OS tried to knee JFS a couple times, didn’t get anything, JFS said something like, “I don’t think so.” JFS and OS traded street lethal eye gouges to little effect. OS slipped his head out of the headlock (I saw no bite, but I don’t think I would have from where I was standing), postured up and whacked JFS. There was some punching and some arm grabbing and so on. They talked for a second (didn’t catch what they said), then OS hopped off and walked toward the car. He was saying something about JFS’s lack of a mount defense and about going home, JFS calling after about “finishing it,” blah, blah, more yelling.
JFS is, in fact, quite bloody at this point, but it looked to me like it was all coming from superficial cuts inflicted by – irony of ironies – the very concrete on which he wanted the fight to happen. Also maybe the bite?
I went over to talk to Anna with the goal of setting up a place where the originally scheduled fight could occur, possibly with an OS v. JFS re-match included.
While we were discussing locations, JFS reached in and whacked OS’s head via the car window, more shouting, lots of “nigger boy” from JFS, even less dignity thus bestowed on an already revolting situation.
Atlanta crew leaves. JFS goes to get car keys in order to drive to new venue, I wait outside to get the details from Anna, who calls with some worries about the police. JFS gets cleaned up – looks fine, not really hurt at all – decides to go to the beach instead, he and Omar and Donkey do that, I go have lunch with my mum, then take the bus back to NYC.
Before we parted company I told JFS that I would have done the same thing OS did (minus the flying kick) and so would he (had he been on the other side of things), he nodded and said he couldn’t even be mad at the guy. I can’t make sense of JFS, who seems in many ways to be two people at once.
Why can’t we get together and beat the snot out of each other in a friendly way, like civilized people?