One of the fan competitions at Arkansas Twisters games is a form of musical chairs Ð with the portable facilities replacing chairs. Three Ð then two Ð fans walk around two Ð then one Ð tall, gray booths and when the music stops, the one without a throne is tissue.
During Saturday's contest, two fans abandoned the walk-around formalities and began grappling. The prize was decided by a full body slam and a lunge, several seconds after the music stopped.
The WWE-type, "Battle Royale Flush" was a better undercard than the routine sparring exhibition put on by boxer Jermain Taylor to promote his upcoming title bout.
The boxing and impromptu rasslin' were supposed to be appetizers for an arena football playoff game at Alltel Arena. At times, the Arkansas Twisters morphed into their late cousins, the RiverBlades: Hockey broke out at the Alltel Arena, with touches of Roller Derby.
Arena football? The eight-on-eight human pinball is not normally characterized by trash-talk and cheap shots. But the Twisters and the Blitz went at it like Hurricanes and Seminoles. One witness was Dax Hill, a former Conway High athlete who was back judge on the officiating crew.
He stayed busy. The game had 26 penalties and nine were personal fouls. Play was delayed several times with "in your face" and "up your booty" flare-ups. Once, the background music was "Kung-fu Fighting."
It's unusual that the Bakersfield, Calif., team prompted such a frenzy. The Bakersfield players played at places like Arizona State, Montana State, Fresno State and Colorado State, hardly natural rivals for a team with players almost exclusively from Arkansas. The Twisters and the Blitz had previously played once, not exactly fertile seeds for froth.
Bakersfield was likely a fragile team emotionally after the sudden death of a player a couple of weeks ago.
But this stuff went beyond pent-up emotion. It was a confrontation of teams and personalities who didn't seem to like each other Ð more on the line than the extra 50 bucks that goes to the winners.
During the celebration after their first playoff victory in history, four Bakersfield players piled on a twisting Twister and began pummeling him. Several Twisters surged to the rescue, including an injured one who was sprint-limping. Various players squared off before cooler heads prevailed. "Bad boys, bad boys," resounded the words of the song on the public address.
The game had ended minutes earlier with three straight personal fouls against the Blitz, including one for throwing an official's flag deep into the stands.
The final seconds were delayed when the P.A. announcer had to sheepishly plead, "Will the fan who has the official's flag please return it?" After a moment of reflection, it sailed onto the field. Apparently, a yellow, weighted AF2 hankie won't get much on e-bay.
Although they gave injured quarterback Chad Elliott a warm round of applause after he was carried from the arena on a stretcher, the fans at Alltel booed the Bakersfield team as the players left the field.
Most members of the Blitz and Twisters, uniforms off, then joined hands in a circle of prayer at midfield.
Heavenly punctuation to a hellish scrap. Amen.
