I've been in a couple of bars where fights broke out, but took my father's good advice: I walked into the ladies room, said I was a plumber and asked what the problem was.

Stick him in the eye with your tamper. See, they have countless uses, if you give it some thought...

Say the right thing and most people won't want any. "I don't fear death," I told a guy who could've kicked my ass, while staring him down. Honestly, I'm not a "liquid courage" drinker nor did I think myself the reincarnation of Charles Bronson. I just didn't give a damn. The look he gave me was just one of freaked-out bewilderment. Had some other near-misses because some people thought I was "standoffish" or whatever. Yeah, I came here to drink, not make a new best friend. Ha ha

We're better off drinking at home, at least those of us who live alone.

I had a few fights in my youth (no bar fights). I'm no bully, but neither am I pumk. I'm lucky in that most folks like me and I can diffuse most situations. I have always gone out of my way to avoid such situaions.

I've never been in a bar fight, but I've seen my share of 'em.

I'm not sure it's any particular virtue that I've never been in one, onna counta I don't go to bars. I just don't. When I was a young turk, I spent plenty of time in bars—not as a customer but as a musician—and I had enough of bars to last me the rest of my life. I saw some wicked fights. And some pretty funny shit too.

This one time we were playing a gig somewhere in western New York State...Batavia, I think. Somewhere around there. As it turned out, the guitar player had loaned his van (which had all the band gear in it) to a friend of his (Carl) the day before the gig, and Carl fell asleep while he was driving...on ice, near Ithaca. The van skidded off the road, the doors flew open, and the band gear became an ornament for some farmer's field.

Well, Carl had hit the windshield and his head was bleeding. He wasn't badly hurt, but he was in shock...and the only thing he could think of was, "Jeez, the guys in the band are gonna kill me...", so he was running around in that farmer's field in the dead of night, picking up band equipment and stuffing it back in the van.

I was a drummer in those days, and my drum set was part of the ejecta when the van went blooey. My trap case opened somehow and my cymbals were lying there in the snow. Good ol' Carl managed to find them all, even while he was dripping blood all over everything...including the cymbals...and he got everything back into the van. Somebody towed it back.

So we had this gig the next night. We shoved everything into three cars and hit the road. We didn't even have time to clean the blood off the stuff. As it turned out, the gig was at a bar that was the favorite hangout of a motorcycle gang. We're talkin' 1968 here, and these weren't exactly enlightened dudes. They came to get drunk and kick some ass. If it was musician ass, no big deal.

At one point, some huge friggin' motorcycle dude staggers over right in front of my drum set between songs and says something incomprehensible to me, so I tried the standard 1968 affirmation, "Right on, man!", just exactly as if I had any idea WTF he said. He says, "Well all right!", so I must have given the right answer. Then he looks at my cymbals, which have dried blood all over them, and says, "Whats that stuff?"

"It's blood, man."

Silence.

I grinned.

"Cool!" he says. We were an instant hit.

Fights broke out throughout the rest of the night, but at least we didn't get our asses kicked.

Only one real fight, and one near-miss.

The real one happened long ago (so did the near-miss, for that matter). I was helping a friend who managed a bar. It was closing time, and we were going around reminding folks that it was time to go home. There were three or four guys at a pool table who had obviously been drinking more than they should have. One of them got in my face and said, rather incoherently, "we'll leave when we're ready." Wiping his spittle from my face, I said, as nicely as I could, "you're ready now."

He didn't think so. He shoved me backward against the pool table. Now, I am a sixth degree black belt in Isshinryu Karate, and at the time I was in pretty good shape, with sharp reflexes, etc. No more words were said, and it all happened pretty quickly. I threw a punch that pretty much exploded his nose, and knocked him off his feet onto his ample ass.

Of course, his friends decided to join in, but fortunately my friend and another bar employee also jumped in, and a fine time was had by all.

My friend who owned the bar got a beer bottle to the head, and I took him to the ER for stitches.

The near-miss came when my wife and I were dancing at a club, and a guy kept bumping into me. I figured, what the heck, it's a crowded dance floor, accidents happen. But it happened over and over, and I finally told him it was over. He backed down, and nothing happened.

This guy actually was too young to be in there anyway (my wife knew him). He went on to be a police officer, and we became sort-of friends later.

I actually detest fighting, but as others have said here (and my Karate instructor always told me) avoid it if at all possible. But if you must defend yourself or your family, hit hard and hit fast. And make it count.

Mike

While it may make for good movie entertainment, People who engage in this type of behavior are that types that are accustomed to arrest and court life and are more comfortable spitting out a molar than most are with just spitting. To win a bar fight is never to find yourself in that type of environment.

I wish I could see what the original poster put up as a pic...says it's been deleted. But sure I've been in fights in bars. To tell you the truth they kinda suck, I go to the bar to have some beers shoot the shit, and try (emphasize the word try) to get a girl to go home with me lol. I'm really a happy, jovial drinker, but I have some friends who aren't, and there's always loudmouths at a bar, and sometimes the fight just comes to you.

I guess it depends what kind of bars you frequent also. Having grown up blue collar, my friends are as such, and some of them have no problem throwing hands with anyone. Lol and in the interests of my friends's safety I've had to jump in and try to save my 160lb friend who tried to beat up a 300lb guy in some shit bar. But I'm 36 now lol and I've been going less and less to places where I'm more likely to have to stop my dumb buddies from getting there heads kicked in...and I gotta say, it's much more relaxing. More expensive lol...but relaxing.

I've never been in a bar fight, but most of my fighting stories are pretty humorous so I'll share.

The first one was at a San Antonio Spurs Basketball camp when I was 10. I was really small for my age, but there was this even smaller kid in my group who obviously had early onset small man syndrome. He was running his mouth all week, and finally on the last day of camp he set me off by saying my grandma could probably shoot better than me. I started punching him as fast and hard in the stomach as fast as I could while tears are streaming down my face. He never hit back, and the coaches broke it up and moved me to a different group to finish out the day.

The second one was in high school. I was on anti-depressants, which is pretty much the dumbest thing you can put a teenager on when their hormones raging, and they were changing the doses on me trying to find the right mix. They prescribed me a lower dosage I was supposed to take more doses of a day, but I accidentally kept taking the higher dosage while upping the doses per day. It's hard to explain it, but pretty much anything that might annoy you or upset you even slightly set me into a rage. A bunch of us were playing wall ball against the auditorium, and some kid did something to pull the pin. I pushed him and he pushed me back. Everyone gathered around for a fight, and he slapped me. His slap snapped me out of it, and some of my friends grabbed us and held us back. The other guy yells "I kicked your ass!", and someone else goes "You didn't kick anyone's ass, you b*tch slapped him."

The last fight, and only real fight, I was in was a muay thai fight at a gym I trained at. I found out that I don't enjoy getting punched in the face, and it's a good idea to spare before being in a bar fight. It's also not a good idea to fight a guy who's been training for a year when you've only been training for 3 months, but of course I didn't know any of that before the fight.

My only bar fight experience happened on graduation night in college at a bar/dance hall in College Station, TX. My friends and I were all out dancing with our girlfriends, and a fight breaks out right next to us. I spin around with the intention of protecting my girlfriend from the fray, but my eye catches one of my best friends who has forgotten his girlfriend and is just trying to get some free punches in on the random guys fighting. It still makes me laugh.

Bas Ruten has good and hilarious advice on how to with a fight. I can't post the link, but just search for "Bas Rutten Instructional Video - the funniest" on youtube and it'll be the first video, it's seriously funny stuff.

I use to hang out at a couple bars near UVA when I was college aged. one was a country western bar and the one next door held concerts alot but mainly rock. Being part Scotch/Irish I been in more than my fair share of fights, none however was started by me...... well not intentionally anyway.

My biggest one was when I was at the country western bar and was shooting pool with a couple friends.I was sitting down waiting my turn when I happened to notice that a waitress that I REALLY liked was bent over the table behind me cleaning it so I decided in my drunken stupor to bite her butt, not hard mind you just a nip. As I leaned back someone kicked the chair out from under me and I came up and cracked him with the poolstick then commenced of beating him mercilessly. Once we was seperated the bouncer asked what happened so I told him. The look on the waitresses face was priceless and she said "you was going to bite my ass, why" To which I replied because it is really nice and it deserves a friendly little nibble" the bouncer was cracking up and she was blushing.

I didn't get kicked out but the other guy was along with arrested.

Wow Cuervo, that's a classic.