The Pillow Fight League: The Stranger Side of Sports Entertainment
Pillow fighting is a fun activity that children take part in to the amusement (and chagrin) of their parents, who usually have to clean up the mess of feathers left in the aftermath. Adults have also been known to indulge in a spot of pillow fighting once in a while when they get the urge to act childish; it is great fun, by the way. Now it seems people in Canada have decided to take things to the next level. A professional pillow fighting league was set up - yes you read that correctly, a professional pillow fighting league. It seems this is no laughing matter, and it is a cross between the WWE and MMA. It looks like this crazy sports entertainment spectacle will just keep on growing in popularity in the future.
The Pillow Fight League, or PFL, was set up in 2006 in Toronto, Canada by someone named Stacey P. Case. Even though a lot of people thought it was a joke when it started, it has grown in popularity, although its audiences are still small and there is not a lot of money in it. But the sport is about something more than money: it is about pride, never giving up and giving it your all. A professional pillow fight in the PFL consists of two women who battle it out in a five minute match to see who emerges as the victor. Punching, kicking, submission holds, grappling and hitting an opponent are all legal as long as a fighter uses a pillow to execute the move. The innovative way in which the fighters use a pillow to pound the stuffing out of their opponents is something to behold. Further evidence that pillow fighting has become a proper sanctioned sport is the fact that there are numerous rules that a fighter has to obey. Only female fighters are allowed in the League: no biting, hair pulling or gouging is allowed, loading a pillow with a foreign object is strictly prohibited, no rude behaviour, lewd conduct or suggestive actions are allowed by fighters and pillow fights are judged on the standard ten point scoring rule that is ruled over by a three judge panel.
The interesting thing about the PFL is the fact that the women who take part in the fights are professional fighters and do not tolerate attempts to sexualise or trash their sport. The League has a no discrimination policy and accepts all fighters no matter what they look like. This is in stark contrast to the wrestling entertainment companies out there that hire women with the most amount of plastic stuffed into their bodies. The PFL is really trying to be taken seriously in spite of the perception that pillow fighting is a children’s activity and it has no athletic merit. These women beg to differ; they all train twice a week with a Brazilian jiu-jitsu trainer and they are not in the sport for the large paycheques; the most amount of money given to a winner of a bout is $100. They are a part of the sport because of their desire to compete, to release their fighting spirit and to prove that women can fight just as well as men. The PFL is trying its hardest to change the way people see women’s fighting sports and thinks a bit of fun can be injected into serious fighting sports as well.
The PFL is growing in popularity and the ladies of the league have even travelled to South Korea to compete in a live television event in the country. Matches have been taking place all over Canada and in America with average audiences of 300 people. That number too is growing as more people hear about it and go to check out the craziness. Once there, they underestimate the physical aspect of the matches, and do not realise that it takes a lot of strength and muscular ability to swing a pillow at an opponent repeatedly. This crazy sport is all set to become the next big thing to hit the world of sports.
In the next few years, we should all expect the sport of professional pillow fighting to invade a lot of countries of the world. With its mix of fighting, entertainment and physicality with pillows, it looks like the sport of pillow fighting is here to stay.
Who knows, maybe WWE’s next big RKO/finishing move will involve a fibre-filled bed pillow too. Just saying.
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