For a group that is so good at putting a chokehold on Iowa’s education, you’d expect the Iowa Legislature would be fine with the “Fight Nights” that are held at the Toad Holler, a Des Moines bar. However, the Des Moines Register reported last week that Republican Mary Lou Freeman feels Iowa needs a “prohibition on extreme fighting.”

OK, I realize I’m from Iowa City, but since when did Republicans start condemning brutal violence? And should they be so hasty?

With the current path that the Iowa educational system is traveling down, extreme fighting may be the most intellectually demanding job available to Iowa graduates.

Last Wednesday, a few friends and I visited Toad Holler to witness for ourselves this extreme fighting. Right away, after I scraped the cigarette smoke off my glasses, I noticed how Toad Holler beckons to all the diversity of middle Iowa, with faces from faraway, exotic-sounding places like Winnebago County. Also, the dress code is lax – my friend Chris told me last time he went, the emcee burned a bra onstage while screaming “Bras suck!”

I do recommend arriving early to find good seats, though. One poor girl tried sitting down at a table reserved by a lady named Jennifer, who politely offered to reduce the girl to her component atoms for “not respecting [Jennifer’s] wishes.”

Otherwise, people were relaxed as they watched the official fighting. There were moments of deadly seriousness between fights when the emcee would announce that if more girls didn’t volunteer, the wet T-shirt contest would tragically be cancelled. But the fights themselves were informal. There were a few pro fighters, but there were also quite a few guys with bodies as muscled as tofu who were content with duking it out in their blue jeans. Often, these inexperienced fighters would do silly things like shove each other in the hope that someone would eventually give up, which would then cause the courteous crowd to shout out helpful advice.

Don’t get the idea that the fighting scene at Toad Holler is in anyway uncivilized. In fact, Toad Holler is way ahead in terms of culture – during the fights, bare-chested men grappled each other in ways that would’ve gotten them shot in many other parts of Iowa. And after the fight was over, the opponents would smile and hug each other in a manner that said, “Thanks for not rupturing my reproductive organs.” This, of course, is in stark contrast to the Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature who would leap at the chance to castrate each other during budget debates.

Halfway into the evening, the emcee proudly announced that enough women volunteered for the wet T-shirt contest, which elicited cheers from the mostly male audience. Maybe this leads you to believe that all the guys who go to Toad Holler are perverts who just want to see women strut around lewdly. This is not true. In fact, the guys hooted MUCH louder when a female kick boxer named Nicole interrupted the contest by jumping into the ring and declaring her desire to pummel the ring-girl.

The ring-girl replied by quickly evacuating the premises. The crowd booed in disappointment. Nicole flexed her muscles in victory. But before you could say “alcohol,” Jennifer, the defender of tables, rushed up to accept Nicole’s challenge in place of the ring-girl. The crowd went wild again. The wet T-shirt contest did manage to get underway after all the chaos. I was too excited about the upcoming “chick fight” to watch, but I did notice that the judging was far fairer that what you would find at the Winter Olympics.

A few more guy fights and it was time for Jennifer and Nicole to take center stage. I placed my bets on Nicole, who after all, looked like an athlete. Jennifer, on the other hand, looked about as built as a typical secretary and was almost old enough to be Nicole’s mother.

But I might as well have bet against Cael Sanderson, because as soon as the fight began, Jennifer laid a fury onto Nicole that made all the preceding guy fights look warm and fuzzy in comparison. Basically, Jennifer held the shorter Nicole at arm’s length with one hand while using the other hand to repeatedly dislocate Nicole’s face. This painful, one-sided assault lasted four rounds – nearly longer than all the other fights combined – before Nicole sagged to the canvas. I expected Jennifer to have multiple heart failures after the excessive effort she put out, but instead she broke out into a wild cheerleading routine.

Afterwards, I had a chance to talk with her as she cooled down with a Budweiser while her girlfriends remade her hair. Several fight promoters were begging her to compete in the upcoming Tough Man competition, but she refused – she “prefers to watch.” She told me that she indeed was a secretary (at a car dealership), and despite her performance, this was her first fight.

“I don’t care what I win,” she said (winners don’t receive prizes). “I did it just for my satisfaction.”

Now, supposedly Mary Lou Freeman and her lawmaking cronies were going to pay a visit to Toad Holler Wednesday to witness the violence first-hand. I hope they see what a fine establishment it is and that they move on to other pertinent legislative issues, like regulating the flavors of Jell-O used in Jell-O wrestling or exactly how much nipple can be exposed before it is declared obscene. Maybe they’ll be able to fit education on the agenda too.

Either way, I really hope that they tried sitting at Jennifer’s table.

Dan Nguyen is a senior in computer engineering and journalism and mass communication from Iowa City.