Stuff You Should Know - Are there real-life fight clubs?

Episode Date: August 5, 2008

The 1996 Chuck Palahniuk novel, "Fight Club," has been blamed -- and lauded -- by various groups for inspiring several real-life fight clubs. Take a look at our HowStuffWorks article to learn more about real-life fight clubs. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. The residue-free, fast drying solution is specially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like Stone, Tile, Laminate, Vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit bona.com slash Bona Clean. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. The cartels, they just killed everybody that was home. Setting an aspiring private investigator on a collision course with corruption and multiple murders. The detective

agency would turn out to be a front for a drug pilot who would claim he did it all for this CIA. I'm Lauren Brad Pacheco. Join me for murder in Miami. Talk about walking into the devil's den. Listen to Murder in Miami on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a staff writer here at HowStuffWorks.com. With me is my fellow staff writer Charles Bryant. Charles W. Bryant, right? That's right. Well, welcome, Chuck. How you doing? I'm doing great, Josh. How about you? I'm doing pretty good, Chuck. I'm feeling a little jacked up. I actually kind of feel like punching you right in the face. Well, you know what, Josh? If you did that, I would probably just take it like every good pacifist.

I would take it. See, I'm not necessarily a pacifist. I'm more fear of pain. Me too. Yeah, okay. I think that means that neither one of us should actually join a fight club. No, I've never been, I've never been hit in the face, and I don't plan to start now at my advanced age. It's been many years since I was hit in the face, and I think that was the first and only time, and I quickly became scared of being hit in the face, which is my fear of pain that, you know, it explains that. Right. So fight clubs, not for us. Off limits. But they are for some people. Yeah, and actually, they are real. Surely you've seen the movie Fight Club several times. Yeah, every guy, you know, that's a real man's man, I think, has seen Fight Club at least three times. At least. Maybe four

even. You read the book? I did. I read the book. I saw the movie. I, you know, I put on a one-act play of Fight Club. It was great. I'll bet. I'll bet it was your own interpretation. It was. So the author of the book, Chuck Palaniuk, I think, he has been accused many times over, especially after the movie came out, because I think most people who start Fight Clubs don't read necessarily. But he was accused of starting a trend of conceiving of these Fight Clubs, which he says that he made up. Right. And then it's on the real thing. Yeah, lots of people who like to fight started their own Fight Clubs. Yeah. And actually, there are some out there. I found some when I wrote the article, Are There Real Life Fight Clubs, and found that a lot of them really mirror some

like the rules and the setup that you find in the book. Like, did you read about Bloody Knuckles? Yeah, Bloody Knuckles in San Francisco is they have their one rule, which is the famous rule from Fight Club. If you show up, you have to fight. Right. You can't just be a spectator and you have to say it like that. Yeah, exactly. Or else it's just, you know, loses its meaning. And you kind of wonder, like, what exactly would happen if you're like, okay, you know, I'm going to go to Bloody Knuckles Fight Club. He lives in a hotel. I imagine a really rundown, weird hotel. And everybody meets in his room. There's like a secret knock. You have to know somebody. And they take you down to a subbasement to fight, right? What happens if you get to the subbasement? You're

like, I don't want to fight. Right. I don't. It might quickly turn into a pulp fiction scene. You know? Yeah. Yeah. The get might. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That scene. Oh, yeah. That's a bad one. And I think I'd rather fight. I would too. I would too. You know, like just go ahead and go through with it because you're either going to be beaten and mauled or, you know, just, you know, fight somebody else, whatever. Yeah. So California seems to be the place to be for real life Fight Club. Yeah. There was another one in Oakland, just on the other side of the bay called the SB Rats or a gang of motorcycle tufts or Vespa Tufts. And they use it actually as a formative initiation. And, you know, apparently like hundreds of people show up to these fights. So you can

be a spectator. Yeah. It's not just a form of initiation. They, and there are like hundreds of people. It's like the place to be on Friday nights if you ride a motorcycle, right? Right. So some gangs, including, I think, the rats use it as an initiation for prospects. They basically throw them in the ring and have them beat the tar out of one another. And I guess whoever's left standing is the new member, that kind of thing. Right. And if you lose, then I'm not sure what gang you remember. I don't know what happens either. And actually, there was a really extensive article in the, I think, San Francisco Guardian, Bay Guardian, something like that. It seemed like an underground kind of newspaper or alternative press at least. And this guy chronicled this

night, Friday night at the SB Rat Fight Club. There were girls fighting one another. Wow. He went up and interviewed one of them. And she got about halfway through this quick interview and turned and started vomiting because she was beaten so badly. Wow. Some prospects got jumped in and that's when you earn your money as a journalist. Yeah. Yeah. And this guy, you could tell it was very thrilling, you know, but I mean, when you're writing about a fight club, the best way to do it is to go yourself. I unfortunately didn't have time to do that. Right. I didn't find any in Atlanta. Right. Although it would be legal, I know you found out that as long as two dudes or two women are whoever, adults, adults, adults and they have to be not paid, they can beat the snot out of each

other and there's, you know, no repercussions. As long as you're consenting. Right. Yeah. And actually I also ran into something that didn't make it into the article. It's called the Pillow Fight Club. Have you heard of this? I've heard of, yeah, National Pillow Fight Day they have every year. They have like flash mobs. There was one in Tel Aviv, found one in Seattle, where everybody just shows up at a predetermined time and starts beating one another pillow. Wow. That sounds like a lot more at my alley. It's much more of a loving. Yeah. As a lover, I think you'd appreciate that. I think anybody would appreciate are there real life fight clubs. So you should go read it now or else me and Chuck will find you and stay tuned to find out what the Brady Bunch and Hurricane

Katrina vacuumies have in common right after this. Stuff you should know is brought to you by Visa. We all have things to think about. Like say, what's the best site to buy a new leather jacket or whether to buy the three or six megapixel camera. But thankfully we don't need to think about online fraud because for every purchase you make, Visa keeps an eye out for fraud with real time fraud monitoring and by making sure you're not liable for any unauthorized purchases. How's that for peace of mind? Safe, secure, Visa. So Chuck, do you know what Hurricane Katrina vacuumies and the Brady Bunch have in common? You know, Josh, I don't. You tease me with this one for weeks and I've been dying to know. I can't

imagine. I'm finally going to reveal it to you. What? They're both exposed to formaldehyde through particle board. You know anything about this? No, but how does the Brady Bunch figure out? Well, the Brady Bunch had that faux wood paneling in their living room and Hurricane Katrina vacuumies were exposed to it through FEMA trailers, which the government recently ordered them out of because of health issues, right? Yeah, yeah. That's a bit of a reach, but I'll buy it. Actually, it's not. I found that the combination in one of our colleagues' articles, Kristen Conger, wrote 10 everyday dangerous things in your home and you can find that on HowStuffWorks.com. Learn about formaldehyde and nine other interesting things you should be

very scared of. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at HowStuffWorks.com brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. The cartels, they just killed everybody that was home. Setting an aspiring private investigator on a collision course with corruption and multiple murders. The detective agency would turn out to be a front for a drug pilot. It would claim he did it all for the CIA. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Join me for murder in Miami. I'm walking into the devil's den. Listen to murder in Miami on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1968, five black girls were picked up by police after running away from a reform school in Mount Megs, Alabama. I'm writer and reporter Josie Duffy Rice. And in a new podcast, I investigate the abuse that thousands of black children suffered at the Alabama Industrial School for Negro children and how those five girls changed everything. Listen to unreformed on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.