KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The crowd was chant­i­ng for blood, but be­fore the tough­est bo­is­men could throw a sin­gle blow in the night’s fi­nal bout, Sel­wyn John won his fifth Na­tion­al Stick Fight­ing Com­pe­ti­tion ti­tle at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do on Wednes­day night.

The venue host­ed a fes­tive and fever­ish crowd as stick fight­ing re­turned to the city af­ter COVID-19 forced a two-year hia­tus. In 2020, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) was al­so forced to can­cel the com­pe­ti­tion at the semi­fi­nal stage fol­low­ing an im­passe with bo­is­men over prize mon­ey.

But as John en­tered the Gayelle for the cham­pi­onship bout, he mere­ly waved his bois to salute the crowd. This was be­cause his op­po­nent, Daniel Bar­clay, could not put up a chal­lenge, as he en­tered the Gayelle with his arm in a ban­dage af­ter suf­fer­ing a heavy lash in his semi­fi­nal bout against Mark Quashie.

Bar­clay lay down his bois, sur­ren­der­ing to John, be­fore pick­ing it up to hail the crowd.

Fol­low­ing his vic­to­ry, John said he was al­ways con­fi­dent of suc­cess, as he knew his strengths and com­peti­tors, hav­ing played against them many times.

“As a war­rior, I rather fight and win, but the op­po­nent was wound­ed, so he hap­pened to give up his bout,” John said.

John took home $30,000 for his ef­forts in the com­pe­ti­tion. Evon Ralph, who did not make it to the fi­nal bout, won the $20,000 sec­ond-place prize. Ralph won his 3rd/4th place bout against Mark Quashie, who did not con­test. There­fore, the judge award­ed Bar­clay third with a prize of $10,000, and Quashie got the fourth-place re­ward of $5,000.

How­ev­er, Bar­clay said he be­lieved he got robbed of sec­ond place and said it this would be his last time in the com­pe­ti­tion. He found it un­fair that Ralph did not qual­i­fy for the cham­pi­onship bout yet fin­ished ahead of him. An­der­son Mar­cano mean­while won the Can­dal Com­pe­ti­tion for the best-dressed bo­is­man.

Mean­while, NCC chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ter was hap­py with the re­turn of the tra­di­tion­al art form, say­ing he was a re­al fan and played as a young boy grow­ing up in Ma­yaro. He showed a scar on his bald head as proof.

Pe­ters said the pas­sion re­mains, as au­di­ences still at­tend the Gayelles and shout for blood. He re­called that dur­ing his time as Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, he tried to make stick fight­ing less in­ju­ri­ous.

“I was go­ing to make some ap­pa­ra­tus that you could put on your head and hands, and when you get lash, you get points in­stead of blood so you would know the win­ners. It is some­thing that I would still like to see in stick fight­ing, where we can have it as a re­al game, maybe one day in the Olympics,” Pe­ters said.

While the last two bouts end­ed with no ac­tion, pa­trons got what they came for in the pre­lim­i­nary rounds, with for­mer de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Roger Sam­bury leav­ing the Gayelle in pain af­ter Bar­clay over­pow­ered him and drew blood from the left side of his face. With his eyes puffy as if a bee stung him, Sam­bury’s night wors­ened. He tried valiant­ly tries to throw bois at John in the next bout. It took ring­mas­ters 45 sec­onds to end Sam­bury’s par­tic­i­pa­tion, as John made light work of draw­ing blood from the right side of his face.

In an­oth­er pre­lim­i­nary round, Quashie grabbed Mar­cano like a ragged doll to ex­pose to the ring­mas­ters that he drew blood. The tall vs short bat­tle seemed like a mis­match, as the big­ger Quashie bul­lied the fes­tive­ly dressed Mar­cano and had him run­ning to fetch his head­piece. There was an ex­change of blows, but on­ly Mar­cano felt the pain.

The night was al­so full of colour and ex­cite­ment, with the Fe­lix De Foo Stick Fight­ing Work­shop danc­ing in the Gayelle with their fan­cy out­fits adorned with jin­gles and rib­bons. Chant­i­ng “Walk on them” to the beat of old iron knock­ing, their stick fight­ing pre­sen­ta­tion brought the first blow of the night. Even though it count­ed for noth­ing, it still ex­cit­ed a crowd sali­vat­ing for bat­tle.

Ring­mas­ters per­formed the open­ing rit­u­al of ig­nit­ing cam­phor blocks with al­co­hol, as the chantwells bel­lowed to the thun­der­ous rhythms from the Molom­bo and Cushe drum­mers.

By the se­mi-fi­nal rounds, the drum­mers cried out: “We want more Pun­cheon”.

Anslem Dou­glas rolled the years back with per­for­mances of a few so­cas, in­clud­ing Ra­ga Pum Pum and When Ah Dead Bury Meh Clothes. Mr Shak al­so start­ed a lit­tle kaiso par­ty with sev­er­al of­fer­ings, in­clud­ing his pop­u­lar stick fight­ing song, Bois. There was al­so a dar­ing dis­play by the jab jabs who whipped each oth­er bare-chest­ed.

There was al­so a heat­ed dis­play with blue and black fire-breath­ing and sling­ing dev­ils thrilling the au­di­ence.