Controversy arose in England when a video of two young boys fighting in a caged ring was released on the Internet on Sept. 10, 2011. The boys, eight-year-old Luca Deeley and nine-year-old Kian Makinson, were in a cage-fighting match in the underground Greenlands New Labour Club in Preston, Lancashire.
They fought without any protection or padding whatsoever, and were being cheered on by a crowd mostly composed of adults. In between rounds, women dressed in bikinis, fishnets and high heels wiggled their way around tables offering alcoholic refreshments to the loud, mob-like audience.
The match finally ended when, after the boys had pummeled each other for several minutes, one of them successfully toppled over his opponent and held him down. Much like normal matches composed of adults, the winner was declared by a referee yelling into a microphone accompanied by a roar from the crowd.
While most would be concerned about children participating in this type of event, the parents of the child fighters evidently think otherwise. “If [Kian] wasn’t cage-fighting, he’d probably be chucking stones at buses and giving people grief,” said Kian’s father, Nick Hartley. “But now he has learnt some respect. I don’t force him, his mum doesn’t force him to do it; he does it because he wants to. He is quite good at it and we know he is safe while he is there. He is off the streets and not causing havoc.”
After the match, Luca, who is just 4-feet-2-inches and weighs 49 pounds, received medical attention for a leg injury before bursting into tears. In response to this, Kian’s father simply said, “Yes, the other lad was crying, but he had never been beaten before. None of the children were in danger.”
The fight organizer, Steven Nightingale, who is a professional cage-fighter himself, was also unconcerned about the child’s distress. “The child in question was asked on several occasions if he wanted to stop,” he said. “The child refused. His parents, who were at the ringside, were quite happy for him to carry on.” When interviewed, Luca said that he really enjoys fighting and his parents said that they will continue to bring him to the matches as long as he wants to.
Police have launched investigations of the Greenlands Club, but it was reported that no evidence of illegal activity was found. The organizers of this fight will not be facing any legal action.
“Child abuse” is the term people are using to describe this incident, but a spokesman for Sharefight, the company that posted the video but recently took it down, thinks otherwise. He told BBC news reporters that people were reacting to “the negative stereotype around cage-fighting” and that the cage was put in place to keep the children from falling off the ring.
He then continued with a bizarre comparison, “I would liken it to a game of chess. It’s about outsmarting your opponent rather than overcoming them.” John Cameron, who works with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, thinks differently. “Children rightly need to be engaged in sporting activities that are properly regulated. But this type of event is really reminiscent of old cock fighting and bear baiting.”
This statement brings up questions: how is cage-fighting different from other more commonly accepted sports like boxing, wrestling or football? And how young is too young to be participating in such a sport? Although sports such as football and soccer have had instances where the players have become rough and injuries occur, the basis of the sport is not to inflict harm on your opponent.
As for wrestling and boxing, there are strategies, rules and skills involved along with certain procedures that are taken to prevent extreme injury. But you don’t usually see eight-year-olds punching each other in the face in a ring, strategies and procedures involved or not, especially not in front of a mob of baying adults. Khalid Ismail, a 31-year-old professional cage-fighter who runs two health clubs in Essex, said that the Preston fight wouldn’t have looked so bad if it hadn’t been in a cage in an underground club for adults. “It is fine for a child to go to a dance class,” he said, “but if you took them dancing in a nightclub it would suddenly become totally different. That is the case with the Preston fight. It should not be in that venue on that bill.”
What I find shocking here is the irony that nowadays we are trying to stop the problem of bullying and playground fights in schools, but here are parents who encourage their children to fight one another because they think it’s good for them. “We would strongly discourage parents from letting their children take part in this kind of fighting,” said Chris Cloke, head of child protection awareness at the NSPCC. “The organizers of these activities should think very carefully before allowing children to be involved when they are egged on to inflict violence.”
In any case, it’s not only the encouraged violence that is upsetting. It’s just completely inappropriate for young children to be used as entertainment for adults. They should not be used as cheap amusement to satisfy adults’ lust of violence.
We already have adult WWE and USA Boxing. Why do we need to bring children into it? I understand that this sport can be used as a form of stress release for the boys and gives them something to focus on instead of wandering the streets or playing video games all day.
There is a difference between practicing in a gym with a punching bag or a group of boys your age and performing in front of an adult crowd. They should not be exposed to that kind of atmosphere. Let boys be boys.
Unfortunately, the child cage-fighting venue looks like it is catching on. Steven Nightingale declared the Preston fight an unmitigated success. “I’m going to be putting on at least six more shows in the coming months,” he said.
Disturbingly, he has another 12 schoolboy fighters on his books, youngsters whose parents are apparently willing to allow them to fight for the entertainment of adults.
I fear this issue will continue and inescapably get worse. I only hope that the children being encouraged by their parents to participate are not too traumatized by it and left with psychological consequences.
Nonetheless, traumatized or not, as soon as those boys step onto that caged ring, their innocence is lost and that is something that cannot be taken back.
Paola Crespo can be reached at pollycrespo@hotmail.com