A fella who takes part in a UK-based ‘fight club’ had part of his ear bitten off and now keeps it safe inside a pickle jar. What else are you going to do with, eh?
Alex Etherington, 32, competed in no-holds barred, bare knuckle events where things routinely turn nasty; so much so that he’s lost a chunk of his ear, but he did win the fight - swings and roundabouts and all that.
Etherington appears in the new Channel 4 documentary, UNTOLD: The Secret World of Fight Clubs, which takes a deep dive into some of the 300 underground fights that have taken place across the UK in the last year.
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Etherington, who hails from County Durham, took part in the Swedish-based King Of The Streets’ fight club, which held its first UK event last year, and sees competitors take part in ‘no rules, no rounds' fights.
Speaking to the Sun, Etherington said: “I felt lucky to get on King Of The Streets. It's quite sought after. I only got on it because my friend vouched for me.
“It got half a million views on YouTube and I got around 7,000 followers on Instagram overnight. That was heavy for me.”
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Opening up about the fight itself, which saw him up against a bloke named Bachir ‘Bash’ Fakhouri, he added: "I didn't know what was going to happen because it was my first 'No Rules' fight. I couldn't really have a game-plan really. I didn't know what to expect.
"He was desperate for a win as he'd come off a few losses. Ten seconds in, he bit my ear off. I didn't know it had come off at first. Blood was trickling down my face.
"He wouldn't let go of my hair. I ended up getting whiplash from it. He was going for my eyes.”
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Unlike your average bout, eye gouging is allowed, although Etherington says it's usually stopped before any serious damage is done.
The dad-of-one says after Fakhouri’s ‘screams’ the referee stopped the fight and he was declared the winner.
Following the scrap, Etherington went to hospital in the hopes of having the chunk of his ear reattached, but was told they wouldn’t be able to - so now it lives on a shelf in his kitchen. No, honestly, it does.
He added: “It's in a jar of alcohol solution. Someone told me how to do it. It’s in the kitchen on a shelf.”
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UNTOLD: The Secret World of Fight Clubs is available to stream on C4 from today (20 November).
Topics: UK News, Sport, Health, Weird, Channel 4, TV and Film, Documentaries
Claire Reid