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Published: August 8th 2008
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KFC Candidate
I was a bit aprehensive about holding somebody else's cock. A trip to Asia wouldn't be complete without at least one cock fight. I almost saw one in Indonesia, but the legality of it there seemed to be a bit of a grey area. The predominitly Muslim country isn't opposed to the cock fighting per se, but rather the gambling that accompanies it. Bali, which is mostly Hindu, seems to be more accomodating, but I'm still not sure if it is legal there. At any rate, cock fighting is more underground in Indonesia, but it is legal and very popular in the Philippines.
After we had arrived in Thelma's village, I began asking around about when and where a local fight could be found. Sunday is the big day for cockfighting, just like football is around the world. The fights take place in a small stadium-like building called a cockpit and Thelma's village, Valencia, is big enough for its own cockpit. While visiting with some of Thelma's old childhood friends, we discovered that one of them, Aster, had planned to enter his cock in the next fight. His fighter already had three wins under his feathers and sounded like a contender.
Aster helped teach me the art of betting
Valencia Cockpit
Notice the No Parking sign on the side of the road (amongst all the parked scooters). at the fight. There is no central bookie at the cockpit, so you must seek out someone who can match your bet, and you only have a few minutes before the fight begins to do so. If you want to bet 1,000 pesos, point your index finger in the air. For 100 pesos, point it to the side. If you extend all your fingers and your thumb with the fingers pointing up, that means 50 pesos; fingers out to the side is 500, and fingers pointing down is 5,000.
A few days before the fight, we were at someone's place and they let me hold one of their cocks. It was suprisingly soft. I though he may try and peck me, so I held him far away, but he was actually pretty docile. I told everyone that it was my first time holding a chicken other than when I am at KFC, which was true.
Sunday happened to be the same day as the party at Thelma's house. So after the slaughter of the pig, I was ready for some fowl play with roosters. The day was shaping up to be a great one for animal cruelty. Thelma
Sizing Up The Competition
Size does matter. Unless both owners agree, there will be no fight. didn't want to go as it is more of a men's event. Luckily, I had a crew of guys to go with. In addition to Aster and his wife, Felix, Franko, Gaurdo, and Gregory all came with. It was nice to have a good crew to go to the fight with, but I don't think the men's wives were too happy with them going. I think I was a good excuse to for them to go. Franko had never been to one either, so he may have been as curious as me. I met Gregory, a French guy, while scuba diving on Apu island the previous day. Thelma and I had to go pick him up at his hotel and bring him to the house on our scooter. It was pretty comical to see all of us squeezed onto the tiny scooter. don't think Gregory was impressed by my scooter driving and insisted on driving it to the cock fight from the house.
Before Aster's cock could fight, he needed to find a worthy competitor. Outside of the pit, there were plenty of men with their cocks out sizing each other's up. The cocks were moved around and their
Get The Knives Out
After the fight has been agreed, a knife is attached to one of the rooster's legs. height and weight were compared. Both owners must agree to a fight, otherwise it will not happen. If one cock is too much bigger than the other one, it would be hard to get 50:50 odds. Aster's cock was pretty small, so it took a few tries to find a match. I would have put it in the feather weight class. After the fight has been agreed, each rooster has his ankles wrapped, just like a boxer would his hands. The only difference is that a very sharp knife is affixed to the rooster's leg.
I didn't know what to expect at the cock fight, but I imagined it to be similar to a boxing match. There might be a few rounds with each cock retiring to their own corner where they get a bit of a rubdown and a drink of water. Meanwhile, a hot chick with a big breast and scrumptous thighs parades around the ring with the next round's number on it. This was all purely speculation on my part though.
The reality was a little bit different, but there were some similarities. Aster aseemed to have a bit of an entourage with him and
Make Your Cock Grow Big and Strong
Just like body builders have an array of powders and drinks to make them generate more muscle, so do roosters. I don't think they do any sort of drug testing on the cocks. they all entered the pit together with the cock. There are two corners to the pit. One is labeled "Biya" and the other "Inilog." Biya is for the favorite, and Inilog is for the challenger. Most matches are evenly matched, but the favorite is determined by which cock has money bet on it by the time they enter the ring.
After the entourages have entered the ring, they get the cocks riled up by holding them and brushing their heads together. The roosters are then set down and allowed to strut and crow. This gives the audience a good idea of who to bet on. The cocks don't have names and the reputation of the owner is probably as good a gauge as any. This is the point when all the betting commences. People immediatly start shouting either "Biya" or "Inilog" to indicate who they want to bet money on and make the appropriate hand gesture. It reminded me of how the trading pits at stock exchangtes used to look before computers took over. Gaurdo handled all the bids, calls, settlements, and netting agreements for us. He was a one man financial back office.
When the cocks are
ready, and the bets are placed, the owner picks up his cock and another person removes the safety sheath from the knife. Each rooster has his leg wrapped in a different color cloth. Sometimes, this is the only way to tell them apart when they are the same color. Once more, the roosters heads are rubbed together and then the owners set them loose on each other.
Most fights don't last longer than a minute or two. The fights are all "fight to the death", unless one of the cocks doesn't want to fight and runs away. The owner of the winner gets to take the loser home for dinner.
Aster's cock started out looking promising. He semed to have a pretty high verticle jump and I thought that would be the advantage he needed. There was a lot of wing flapping and feathers flying. The cocks will usually score a hit or two and then sit on the ground, sometimes because of injury. When this happens, the referee will pick each cock up by the back, rub their heads together and then release them into one another again. If anyone is ever going to catch bird flu,
Lets Get Ready To Rumble
Gaurdo prepares Aster's cock for the fight by getting the roosters in the mood for fighting. this is the guy.
Aster's cock didn't stay in the fight very long. After a short lived career of three wins, he suffered his first and final loss. I lost 500 pesos, but felt bad for Aster as we had been talking up his rooster all week. He took the loss in stride and told me, with a grin, not to worry. He has over 20 cocks and went home to get another one. His second cock made me my money back and his third turned out to be the last and best fight of the night. His cock went down prematurely, but managed to inflict saome serious damage on the challenger. As the fight dragged on, his cock refused to die as the other grew weaker and weaker. They were still pecking at each other after they lost the ability to stand. The match was called a draw, so not bets were won or lost.
I had a front row seat to all the action and found it easy to get carried away with the excitement, especially with a few pesos on the line. I bet on a few non-Aster fights for good measure. When I picked
Bringing down the Hammer
You can see Aster's cock has got a good jump on him, but sadly it was not enough. the rooster, I tended to lose, but when Gregory chose, we tended to win. So, I just kept going with Gregory's choices.
It is a bit wrong to make a sport out of pitting two animals against each other in a fight to the death, but at least it is a fair fight. The same could not be said of the bull fights I have seen in Spain. Although their deaths may not always be quick or painless, the free-range lives of these fighter cocks are much better lived then the factory farm chickens in the U.S. Now there's some food for thought.
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Marc
non-member comment
Too many...
Too many cocks going on here! HA!