NO RULES IS NO RULES | 03
Ultraviolence on the Riviera
In case it wasn’t clear, Gargoyle II extracts published here are not always in linear order. They’re taken from various scenes through the book, often at random.
FRANCE—I’m stood in a derelict building on the French Riviera, waiting for two young men to have a No Rules fight on concrete. It’s early. Six in the morning early. Avoiding the police early. There’s a crowd of around 15 boisterous lads waiting for the fight, all ready to go. They’re dressed in an assortment of balaclavas, caps, side-bags, and sunglasses. Some of them travelled across the country by overnight coach to be here. Everyone is clearly very excited for what’s about to take place: organised ultraviolence with no restrictions.
The crumbling venue for this fight has long been abandoned. It sits behind a locked gate and a spiked fence, with overgrown shrubbery in every direction. It’s a broken down concrete block with two floors. It’s maybe an old observation post. To get in, I had to climb through a gap in the fence that’s been pried apart wide enough to squeeze through. Inside, the building is covered wall-to-wall with random graffiti. All the windows are put through and some of the stairs are falling down. The floor though, is spotless.
A group of young French tearaways spent last night getting the place ready. They swept out the broken glass and piles of rubbish and mopped the concrete ground till it shined. They seem very proud of it. This is their first proper event as FPVS—a new underground No Rules fight club. What FPVS stands for is hard to translate properly into English, but it basically means: “Don’t come around here trying to suck our dicks when we get big.” No joke.
The two lads who founded the fight club are called Leon and Victor. They’re both 20-years-old. They look it. Neither have quite grown into their frames yet and they’re hardly the typical streetfighters you might think of, but they’re lean, alert, and they hold themselves in a way that shows they’re prone to mischief. Both of them are dressed head to toe in black, with face coverings pulled up to their noses.
Despite being up all night getting things ready, they’re still full of energy. Or cocaine. Or a mix of both. They cannot wait for the chaos.
“What is it about fighting that you love?” I ask, as they show me around the derelict building.
“The adrenaline, bro,” says Victor.
“You don’t have any other problems [when fighting],” Leon cuts in. “You just think about the fight—you concentrate. We love confrontation and to see who’s the best.”
Leon has an air of old school French arrogance about him when he speaks. He’s aloof. Shrugs a lot. Victor’s the opposite—he can’t help but be friendly and candid. They’re an odd duo, but it works. Both are well organised and highly motived. They both also love fist fighting in a world that thinks they shouldn’t.
“Fighting is a way to express myself,” says Victor. “You’re always being told to be calm in society. You can’t really explode … I don’t know what makes something art, but to me this is art.”
“You see this as art?” I clarify.
“Yes. I don’t like Picasso, I like this,” laughs Victor, gesturing with his hand to the abandoned building, the fighters, the electric in the air.
“And when there’s no rules and no gloves, you’re just free,” says Leon. “It’s the greatest thing. I think it’s the best.”
The two lads fighting for FPVS in Cannes—Louis and Warren, both in their early 20s—are up on the remains of the abandoned structure’s outdoor patio area on the second floor. They’re shadow boxing amidst piles of broken glass and concrete debris. From here, I can see the perfect blue of the French Riviera’s coastline in the near distance. Expensive private yachts bob up and down as the sun rises into a cloudless sky. Directly in front of me on the patio, two thrill-seeking lads are preparing to knock fuck out of each other as part of this underground fight scene. Even amidst the beauty of Côte d’Azur, the unapologetic ugliness of prearranged violence is most compelling.
Several FPVS members help the two fighters get in the zone—wrap their hands, hold pads, gee them up. Warren is about 6’2’’, muscular, lean, and has a fighter’s gait. Louis is about 5’9’’, skinny-fat, and already seems out of his depth. I ask Louis why he came here, why he’s decided to fight in such a hardcore manner.
“To prove myself,” he says. “To be a better fighter.”
“What about the concrete floor, are you not worried about that?” I ask.
“It’s part of it. I know what I’m here for. It’s no problem.”
He sounds prepared, mentally, but the odds don’t look good. Not from here. Warren is shredded head to toe and Louis’s pale body looks entirely uncoordinated. It’s true that muscles don’t win fights, and with No Rules anything can happen, but still, I feel a bit worried for Louis. I ask Leon what he thinks about the clear size difference.
“They weigh the same,” he says, indifferently.
Leon shrugs it off and reminds me that Louis put himself here. He contacted the FPVS guys via the Telegram messenger app. He told them he wanted to fight, so now, he’s here to fight. If you can find the right people and are genuine about fighting, it can be that simple.
Warren and Louis warm up. Warren is shadowboxing on the balcony. Louis is hitting pads with one of the FPVS crew, of which there are around half a dozen. All male. Otherwise they’re a mix, both ethnically and in age. They’re all around 18 to 25. Each of them is dressed in a black tracksuit with various different brands of trainers. They’re a haze of Nike Tech and Balenciaga, Burberry and EA7. Some of them have specially printed FPVS hoodies and t-shirts. They mill around helping fighters, chatting, and rolling spliffs. They’re the kind of lads the upper class of the Riviera probably cross the road from. They seem jovial enough to me though. I’m obviously an outsider, but they’re all pretty friendly about it.
I sit chatting to one of the guys as he holds pads for Louis. He can’t wait for the violence to start. Then it’s time. Leon gathers the fighters, and everyone heads down the half collapsed stairs into the main area where fights take place.
There are two pillars in the centre of the room. Red and white caution tape is wrapped around them loosely as a means to cordon off the area where the crowd now stands. On the floor, in the centre, the FPVS logo is spray painted onto the concrete—a wolf with red eyes. The air smells like weed and sweat. Everyone inside is buzzing. Some are Warren’s friends, some are FPVS, and others are unaffiliated hooligans and streetfighters who’ve just come to watch.
Louis looks nervous. Warren, calm. He cracks his neck and bounces on his toes ready to go. Louis picks at the wraps on his wrist and clenches his hands tight. He looks extremely uncomfortable.
Leon walks into the centre of the concrete room and signals that everything’s ready. The two fighters join him on each side and before the brawling starts, everyone in the room sings the French national anthem with their hand held on their heart—an unexpected show of unity amidst this underground scene. It goes on and on. Everyone in the room, both masked and not, sings along. Everyone but me of course. Fuck that. I’m British.
La Marseillaise ends. Finally. The two fighters bump fists and head to opposite corners of the room. Leon signals by nodding at Victor. Victor gives the go ahead. It’s on.
The two fighters meet each other in centre. Louis throws a badly timed roundhouse kick that bounces clean off of Warren’s leg. Warren throws two jabs straight into Louis face, catching his chin. He’s dazed. His guard drops. Warren shifts in, grabs Louis, picks him up, drops him down to the concrete. Louis tries to throw some defensive punches, but Warren is all over him. He rains down elbows into Louis face. Louis goes foetal, covering up his head. Leon moves in from the sidelines, ready to see if the fight needs to be ended. The crowd is wild with excitement. They want blood. Warren continues dropping elbows. A few miss, a few smash into Louis’ forehead and temple. Louis throws up his hands and taps the floor. He’s done. Leon grabs Warren and pulls him off of Louis. The fight is over.
Louis is helped up off the concrete by FPVS lads. Welts, bruises, and bumps already pattern his face. He’s got blood at his lips. He’s well and truly beaten, but he’s smiling. So is Warren. The two fighters embrace sincerely and the crowd cheers even louder. Win or lose, respect in this world is essential.
The fight lasted about one minute total. Louis got battered, but I’m not sure the outcome really mattered that much for him. He showed up, which counts for a lot when you consider the stakes. That’s part of the notoriety of it—there’s something uniquely daring about No Rules. It’s not sport. You could end up permanently disfigured, brain damaged, or dead. In the words of undefeated KOTS legend Brian Hooi: “Your favourite fighter’s favourite fighter doesn’t do this shit.”
I ask Louis how he’s feeling, as makeshift FPVS medics (whoever’s holding the plasters and antiseptic) tend to his wounds.
“Yeah I feel good,” he says. “I lost but that’s part of it.”
He’s got blood in his mouth and grazed skin around his eyes, but he’ll live. Could’ve been a lot worse. No serious damage.
Half joking, I ask what his family might think when he comes home with his face bashed up. Louis pauses for a second. Then he laughs and says, “Don’t tell my mother!”
In contrast, Warren is completely unscathed. Not a mark. He’s barely even broken a sweat.
“I travelled overnight for this,” he says. “I want to fight again.”
He’s a nice lad. They both are. Pretty normal other than this, whatever normal is. Outside of the chaos of clandestine fighting, Warren works as a labourer on a building site and Louis is a waiter in a restaurant. These violent young men build homes and serve food. They keep the world turning.
TO BE CONTINUED…