Akira The Don
Fight All The Time
I fought from the time I was 15, and I think I had my last fight, it was either I was 21 or 22
The last three fights were kickboxing fights, and I had those while I was doing standup comedy
I was spreading myself too thin
I was working a bunch of different jobs, I was working delivering newspapers, I was working as a private investigator's assistant, I did some construction, I did a bunch of different odd jobs to make a living
I had three kickboxing fights, and I was entertaining the idea of fighting professionally
But I was also starting to get really worried about brain damage
I did a lot of boxing, sparring and a lot of what you would call gym wars
Where guys would just, we would beat the shit out of each other
And you'd get hurt and come homе with headaches
You would basically be fighting in thе gym
The gyms that I came up in were real hard nose, really you know, tough gyms
If you weren't tough
You did not survive, and they weren't interested in anybody that couldn't take a shot or anybody that wasn't willing to go to war
So you would put on a mouthpiece and put on a cup, you put your shin pads on, and you'd beat the fuck out of each other
And that was a big part of learning how to fight

[Pre-Chorus]
You would fight all the time
Fight, fight, all the time
I'd have fights several days a week
You would fight, you would fight all the time
Fight, fight, all the time
You would fight, you would fight, you would fight, all the time

I would make some of the people laugh in training
'Cause we were always nervous
Everytime, when we would go to tournament's, we were nervous, because, you know
I'd seen many of my friends get knocked unconscious in these tournaments, get kicked in the head, taken to hospitals
And you know, I'd seen it in the gym too, a lot of guys getting beat up and knocked down
It was constant
It had happened to me a couple of times. I'd been hurt
So we had this gallows humor
We would go to these events
The tension would be so thick
Everybody taking deep breaths and trying to relax and just stay loose before you fight
And I would be the class clown
It was a charged environment
So anything that I said that was actually funny would get a giant reaction, and that became addictive
[Chorus]
You would fight all the time
Fight, fight, all the time
I'd have fights several days a week
You would fight, you would fight all the time
Fight, fight, all the time
You would fight, you would fight, you would fight, all the time
You would fight all the time
Fight, fight, all the time
I'd have fights several days a week
You would fight, you would fight all the time
Fight, fight, all the time
You would fight, you would fight, you would fight, all the time

My take on it was, you think I'm funny because you're my friend
But other people are gonna think I'm an asshole
Like the things that I think are funny are fucked up
I have a fucked up sense of humor
I mean, here I am devoting most of my time trying to get really good at knocking people unconscious
Trying to separate people and their consciousness
So I was doing my best every day to get good at that
I was trying to hurt people. That's what I was trying to get good at
I was trying to get good at hurting the human body. I was such a weirdo
No one would think that the things that I was making fun of were funny
But I knew from martial arts that if I worked really hard at something, I could get good at it
And I had this thought that maybe I could do that with comedy 'cause I didn't wanna fight anymore
I mean, for a person who's been through what I've done with my body, my body works remarkably well
But the brain damage thing, I don't know, I really don't know
I really step back and think about some of those wars that I was in
In my last fight, I got TKO'd, I got stopped
I got hit with a left hook and dropped, and my legs went out from under me, and then I got up and I get hit again, fell down again and they stopped the fight
That was when I decided I'm going to stop
I know where this is going. I saw guys at the gym, who were punchdrunk
Slurring their words, they would forget things, and I had seen some people progress towards that, and it was very, very disturbing
And I'd be lying in bed at night after a hard sparring session and my head would be pounding
I would think, "What am I doing to my fucking brain? Like, what am I doing to myself?"
I got real lucky that I found standup comedy
[Chorus]
You would fight all the time
You would fight all the time
I'd have fights several days a week
You would fight, you would fight all the time
Fight, fight, all the time
You would fight, you would fight, you would fight all the time
Basically, you're having fights all the time, you would fight all the time
I'd have fights several days a week
You would fight, you would fight all the time
Fight, fight all the time
You would fight, you would fight, you would fight all the time

I mean if the UFC was around back then, I most certainly would've started fighting
And you know to not be training intelligently, because I wasn't training intelligent
I was training like a meathead
And that was just all we knew back then
I probably would have sustained some pretty significant damage before I ever even got into the Octagon
I probably would've already had massive brain damage before I ever had a fight