(crowd cheering)
- To be honest, I love watching the fight.
To get that adrenaline.
My leg would just start shaking, out of nowhere,
like I'd start getting hyped.
- Last time I got into a scrap, it was a five on one.
I just see this big uso talking to my girlfriend.
I'm like, "This isn't going to end well"
- In New Zealand, like so many
other places across the world.
Violent masculinity represents
the ability to dominate another person.
[Song: Phodiso - 'Big Man']
- What it means to be a man in New Zealand is changing.
There are more of us talking about our feelings and
being open about our lives.
This is a five-part series that looks at the
issues affecting young men in New Zealand.
I'm Philip and I'll be chatting with my mates,
Liam and Teowai. This is one for the boys.
(Birds chirping)
- Do you find yourself in a lot of situations
where you feel an expectation to fight?
- Yeah. All the time, bro. It's like, whenever I'm
out with the boys, they always expect me to jump in.
Always. They're like, "Oh yeah, if we suss these
guys out, then you're in, all right?"
And then I'd just got to be like, yeah, sure.
Just cause yeah, just cause you gotta be boys.
Cause it's like, imagine
imagine if all your boys jump into a fight and
you don't and it was just the one standing there.
You just look like a pussy.
- It doesn't just seem to be us.
For a lot of other the guys, violence is everywhere.
- One night we were out at a party and then there
was a massive fight happening on the street.
I seen someone younger than me in the fight and
I sorta went to go help them out.
Yeah. I woke up on the ground.
I didn't know what happened.
And then later on, like I got told
that I got hit with a bat.
I'm currently the lightweight stricken fight series
champion, but there was no one really for me to fight.
So I thought I'd jump up a weight and we get the
challenge for myself.
If all goes well on Saturday, I'm hoping to
go pro after that.
You know, I could just train for a living
and fight for a living.
That's a highest goal. Definitely.
I'd love to join the UFC one day.
I always used to think I was the toughest around
like no one could stop me 'cause I was used to
getting hidings from my older brother.
You know, if I can handle his punch
I can handle anyone's punches.
Whenever we're at parties and something happened,
I used to be like, Oh yeah, what's happening.
Think I was a hero or something like that.
That sorta changed the way I like looked at a lot of things.
I had this massive cut on my lip and I was all swollen
on my like cheek and stuff.
But yeah, I ended up going to ANE and they said that
if it was any higher, I could have got hit in temple
and probably not woken up.
When mom walked in, she was shocked and
she started to tear up.
It was sort of made me sad and realised that,
you know, if it was. Like, if I didn't wake
up to like, see my mom, it would break my heart.
You know, I'm a mama's boy so, you know, I love my mom.
- When I saw him, I was devastated.
I had to talk to him about where he's heading and
from then on, he seems to be going
through the right direction.
For what he wants and his goals and in terms
of MMA, Anthony has done very well and I'm
very proud of his achievements.
I've been once to watch a fight and never again will I go.
I just don't want to watch someone else beat my son up.
Some of these guys are twice his age, you know?
And it's horrible.
It's horrible.
- I don't know. I haven't gotten into a lot of fights
but the one that stands out was, like at a party
one of my mates got too touchy with a girl I knew.
And then that was like a, a snap moment.
Just went in, looking for a fight.
But as it came up, I knew that it wasn't gonna
satisfy what I was after and I could take myself
out of that headspace but in that instance, that
was probably like the hardest to do that.
Like having that like steam off you and that
physically feeling like hotter.
- Yeah.
- A lot of it's rage.
I just want to destroy my enemy.
- I feel like it's like blind rage.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- But I feel like in the moment there is
like a hint of guilt. You suppress it too.
Like in the back of your head, you know you shouldn't
be doing it, but you want that pay off so bad
that you just listen to it afterward.
I actually felt like a little kid. Not being able
to control my emotions.
I think the part where I felt the most like adult
about it was reflecting upon it and knowing why I
felt the reasons I did and kind of learning
from it afterwards.
- It was my brother that really pushed me to MMA.
I reckon the biggest difference is you train.
You do an eight week camp just to fight in the cage.
Fight once.
That person you're fighting is real technical
and he understands the fight game.
It's a game of chess.
Like, Oh, if you move, I'm gonna move.
If you make me flinch, I'm going to make you flinch.
Or I'm going to count his.
Whereas in the fight outside of the cage
everyone just goes all out.
- When I first met Amos, he was a chubby little kid
and he walked into the gym wanting to lose weight.
And I thought, Oh, I don't know hey.
Hey man, you get a few anger issues.
And, and you know, we try to teach instil discipline
and self discipline and self control.
I think all of that has got into him now, you know, it doesn't
it doesn't really have to prove anything.
I think there's a few problems.
You know, we need to address with the youth growing
up now. Most people are from where I come
from from South Africa, they don't have a problem
with emotions and to cry and stuff.
I'll cry, I'm not scared to cry.
You know, a lot of guys say in New Zealand
I'll just swallow a concrete pill you know
toughen up and man up.
I was with youth on for like seven, eight
nine years that I've been in New Zealand.
And, and I try and mentor a lot
of these students here and you need to talk, man
get it out of your system, confide in people.
I'm not worried just about to build
up a group of fighters and tough guys.
I don't care about that.
As long as there's a place you can come in
and train have good fun, lose weight
learn a discipline, learn martial arts.
That's what we doing.
All the guys are like a family.
They stick together.
They help each other through problems.
I think in the martial arts and everything that you learn
here, it calms you down. You don't have to prove anything
you don't have to go out and worry about
your egos and stuff.
It's, it's harder walking away from a fight that
you know you can win than actually fighting.
You know, anyone can fight.
- Yeah. I've conducted a little bit
of research on mixed martial arts.
I've interviewed a lot of professional and
amateur mixed martial arts fighters.
And we've talked about masculinity.
A lot of them like to say that it's not something they try
and build up in their personal identities when
they're training for fights and, and whatnot.
But a lot of times it really is.
So if we think about huge superstars in mixed martial arts
sometimes you see that kind of very violent, glorified
toxic masculinity, where they use gendered language
in order to denigrate their opponents.
It's very difficult to separate these toxic forms
of masculinity with professional sports fighting
and training because that notion
of masculine dominance and violence is so embedded
in the fight sports culture, unfortunately, much
of what drives too many young men's masculinity
is that positive feeling that accompanies the
ability to unleash violence on somebody else.
Most of the violence that we know
of is not in professional sporting settings.
Most of it will happen between friends.
in a bar, alcohol lubricates violence.
So for young boys and men
we're oftentimes socialised to believe that violence is part
of our masculinity, that we can bring violent behaviours
into our identity as ways to assert being more manly.
If you think about it this way
when we're about to cross the street
what's the first thing you instinctively do?
You look a certain way to make sure you're not
going to get hit by a car.
It feels natural.
It's immediate.
It feels instinctive
but that's something we learn over time.
It's the same thing with fighting.
If a young boy or a young man has learned
over his life course, through his phone,
through the media, through his male mentors
that the fastest way to not be disrespected is to say, Hey
let's throw down.
And that becomes instinctive, but it's not instinctive.
It's not natural.
Right? It happens that quickly
because it's been learned over time.
But that also means we can unlearn that over time with work.
- I see my boys are doing well. They're pushing.
I want to go out there and perform. Do my time, brother.
- It's quite overwhelming because when I'm walking down
I see like a massive crowd of my family
and how I feel their presence and how loud they are.
I can feel I block it out quite well.
And I can focus on the fight and just know that, you know
even though I'm real nervous, like, it's just
me and this guy.
You know, like, I don't want to get knocked out,
I don't want to lose.
But at the same time, that's what drives me.
My fears.
- All action is promised from both of these guys.
I want you to set him up a tiny bit. Work the
body a tiny bit.
- The feeling of losing, it just doesn't sit well.
So sort of drives me, gives me that energy to keep going.
- How would you score that one, John?
- It's a tough one. By the looks of things,
it may be one round a piece.
- Good show of sportsmanship to start the
third and final round.
- And it could definitely be up for grabs here
going into the final round.
- It is a cool mentality
- Ams finds his way to the cluntch.
Very nice double leg.
Great third round playing out in front of us.
- Oh, he's strong man, you know. He's real strong.
He took every shot and ate it and just kept
walking forward.
I was surprised 'cause now I'm not used to
like going my full power.
I would think I'd at least stays him or drop him
but he really just ate it and took it walking forward.
It's a crazy feeling.
And that, that's why I really do look by like
I want to feel that feeling again.
I'm thankful for the people around me and my family
and friends who, who do continue to guide me on my way.
MMA has helped me a lot.
It's made me realise that what I was doing
in the past is not that great.
That's humbled me and like shaped me into the man
I am today.
(Upbeat music)