Heat On Oregon Teen `Fight Club' As Movie Brings Scrutiny To Boxing

OREGON CITY, Ore. - Derick Garcia hasn't seen the new movie "Fight Club" and he doesn't understand the fuss about the punching matches among him and his male and female friends.

The Oregon City High School senior has been boxing since he was a boy, something done just for fun with his dad, his older brother or his buddies at a park down the street. They wear gloves.

Everything would have been just fine, Garcia said, if one of his classmates hadn't told a newspaper reporter about the unsupervised Friday boxing matches held since February at Atkinson Park, a thicket of trees atop a bluff overlooking the Willamette River and the skyline of nearby Portland.

"I couldn't believe it," Garcia said. "Nobody cared about it until all of a sudden there were all these TV guys and they're making this into some huge thing. They were way out of control."

At a time of increased scrutiny of teen violence, the boxing hit the news about the same time that "Fight Club," a Brad Pitt movie centered on a brutal, barefisted club for men, began its final advertising blitz before its release to theaters. The film received extra attention in Oregon because it's based on a novel by a Portland writer, Chuck Palahniuk.

"I didn't even know there was a movie like that until a reporter told me," said Garcia, 18. "But this is nothing. It's just having fun. There's no grudge matches or anything like that. We're all friends."

A few girls tried it too, but "it was just cat fighting," the

18-year-old Garcia said. "Nobody hurt anybody else."

Still, the Oregon City Commission voted recently to ban fights from city parks.

"I was very pleased with the way the city commissioners and the police handled it," said Barry Rotrock, Oregon City School District superintendent.

"They listened and took the time to explain their concerns, and tell the kids how it would affect a lot of people if it got out of hand," Rotrock said. "They just explained that from a liability standpoint they couldn't let it continue."

Rotrock and police said they don't expect the ordinance to stop the fights because they can be held on private property as long as neighbors are not disturbed. Officials said they hope the youths will choose to hold the matches in a place where they can be supervised.

"We've expressed our concerns over safety issues with participants," said Lt. Rocky Smith of the Oregon City police. "At this point we haven't made any headway toward getting them into a ring, or some place with supervision."

Garcia's mother, Cherie, said the teens already have tried boxing at each other's homes. She said they have been more careful, and are getting better equipment, including headgear and mouthpieces.