Knuckle

Bad Eye suggested I watch this. Not one of his better suggestions.

A film-maker follows around a few groups of Irish "travelers" for about 10 years and he videotapes their bare-knuckle boxing lifestyle. The thing is, it looks like someone just followed people around with a camcorder for 10 years. The quality of the video in certain parts is shit. Let's just call this a "fly on the wall" documentary. It's certainly bare-bones.

You've seen Snatch. You're familiar with the Pikeys. "You like dags?" Well, the Pikeys looks like Harvard graduates compared to these Irish travellng-folk. Holy fuck, they barely speak English. I'd have an easier time understanding Bunny Wailer than these dudes, and that's saying something.

Their lives are filled with useless inter-family feuds. They posture like it's impossible to end the feuds and the bare-knuckle matches keep things from devolving into an all out war. but let's be honest...they're full of shit. Not one of them is man enough to put an end to things. As much as they protest, they must like the fighting because they're the sole reason it is perpetuated. The retards videotape themselves talking shit to the other family and send the tapes back and forth challenging each other to fights. Pretty pathetic stuff. And in many cases they say, "it's not me, it's them. They ask for fights. I don't. I just accept their offers." So bloody juvenile.

I'll tell you what's not juvenile, though...the purses. These fights have up to 120,000 quid riding on them. And these buggers will fight for over 2 hours if needed. It's bare-knuckle boxing until one man is knocked out or someone throws in the towel. No breaks. Just fight til you can't fight anymore. Gnarly.

I didn't think it was a good doc. Illuminating? Yeah. I didn't know much about Irish traveling boxers before. But did it need to be 90 minutes? Nope. The whole thing is shit-talk on video, fight, repeat. There's very little else to it. A little back story on their excuses for fighting (generally stemming over some other fight decades prior). I think this could have been cut in half and it would have been just fine.

If you want to watch something on boxing, watch the doc the Real Rocky.