March 26, 2016, at 5:00 p.m. – A slight breeze cools the smoky air on a chilly afternoon in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Men and women pass an initial pat-down and bag search before entering “Satan’s Backyard.” Inside they find a clearly defined “ring” lined with tires and black walls tagged “STREETBEEFS” in gold spray paint. This is soon to be the venue of a series of mixed martial arts bouts. One man named Sanjay, a young, long-haired, tan-skinned man, dawning a red T-shirt and black athletic shorts, glares across the ring at his opponent.

On the other end of that gaze is no stranger to the backyard; the black-bearded young man, wearing light grey sweatpants and a black shirt has been in multiple fights, even earning the nickname “The Iraqi” throughout the club. This fight is based on what is said to be a betrayal of friendship, which had escalated to the point of gun violence, until the two men decided to put the guns away and take it to the yard. Today, they will finally have a chance to settle their issues once and for all.

Once known for being the “meth capital of the world,” Harrisonburg is known for being the home of James Madison University. But, just a short drive away from the university is a very different scene. Away from the beautiful building of academia is a side of the city that is littered with trash and abandoned buildings and homeless people beg on the streets as police monitor the activity in the area for what their many street cameras can’t detect.

Born to a drug addict mother and a father who wasn’t present, he gained his nickname from the when his family’s three-story home caught on fire due to the neglect of his intoxicated mother. This left him with burn scars that cover his entire body and a deceased brother.

As the product of a broken home, Scarface took to the streets and pursued the criminal lifestyle: committing theft, robbery, and becoming heavily involved in narcotics. His activities lead to a multitude of dangerous encounters with guns, knives, and other weapons. And at the age of 16, he suffered a stab wound to the neck that left him hospitalized. Admitting that in his youth he was not afraid to use guns, he always preferred settling his issues with his fists.

While serving time in a juvenile detention center, Scarface learned how to box, becoming a fan of the beauty of the art and its healing powers over what life hit him with. He believes that boxing taught him to overcome tough times in his life because the obstacles that you face in boxing are going to prepare you for the struggles that you may face in life.

Now, as an adult, he works to put an end to gun violence in his community by applying what he knows about fighting to issues in his city. Through this application, he has formed a safe environment for people to settle their differences without having to resort to the use of weapons. Here they battle with a referee, regulations, and three one-minute rounds.

Last week, I was lucky enough to be able to sit down with Scarface to talk about the club, the issues, and what the future holds for STREETBEEFS.

Interview with STREETBEEFS’ Scarface

Slickster: At first glance, STREETBEEFS looks like a backyard fight club similar to the one featured in the Netflix documentary Dawg Fights. How would you say that comparison holds up?

Scarface: We’ve had a lot of comparisons to them recently and in my mind, the comparisons aren’t accurate at all. What they [Dawg Fights] show is purely for sport. They are not fighting to solve beefs, at least they weren’t. I’ve followed them for years, and don’t get me wrong, we have fights for sport and I have nothing against sport fighting, but the whole basis of what we do, the reason why we started was to stop street violence. I could see how the documentary was done that we could be compared them, or worse, some people say we’re trying to beat Dawg Fights, which is ridiculous. We started up in 2008, which was actually around the time that they started.

That makes sense. When you look at Dawg Fights and compare them to STREETBEEFS, knowing what I know about what you guys are doing for street violence in your community, you can tell it’s different from the vision that they have. Where these guys see people like Kimbo Slice, and now Dada 5000, and want to create that, potentially ending up at the professional level.

Right, and for some guys that that is an avenue for, I know several guys who have made it to the professional level from them and clubs like theirs. You just can’t compare us to them because our goals are just totally different. Most of our fighters have no desire whatsoever to fight at the professional level.

We do have a couple guys who have been offered, including myself. I turned it down because, again, that’s not my goal. One guy did accept, we have another guy who is getting ready to accept, but out of all of our fighters, we’ve only had a few guys to agree to it. I just don’t want any to think that we’re in it to get guys into organized MMA.

Understandable. Now, you said you had guys accept offers to fight professionally, do a lot of guys in the club have previous mixed martial arts experience?

Yes, we’ve had a guy who had fought in eleven MMA fights. He’s pretty skilled in jiu jitsu and a few other things. He did really well in the yard. We had another guy who had been in four MMA fights. In total, we’ve probably had about seven or eight guys who have had at least one organized mixed martial arts fight before coming into the yard.

That’s a large number considering it’s mostly to stop street violence.

Well, here’s the kicker. Most of those guys that I named out, only one of them had a beef to solve. Here’s the way it works, because most people get confused about the beef and sport fights. We originally started out, me and my partner and friend were in my backyard after a work out to do a little sparring for cardio and some dudes started hovering around. One dude said, “I’ve got this guy who snitched on me, it was a drug deal, basically, I want to bring him in the yard and have him put the gloves on because if we fight in the streets we’re going to go to jail.”

So I told him it was fine and they fought without going to jail. After that, word just kind of spread that if you have a problem, you can go over to Face’s yard and fight. So people started contacting us pretty quickly about wanting to solve these disputes and so we put together some rules of conduct and decided on the best way to do things. Seven years later, we feel like we’ve got the thing down pat.

Then, after a while, people started asking if they could have some fights for sport, and some of the guys who resolved their beefs liked it so much that they were asking to come over and fight to fight. Now, we all hang out together, we go to the gym, and play football together. We try to help each other, and even when we’re not fighting we’ve got each other’s phone numbers and try to keep in touch. So it’s become a club and some of the best friends I have I’ve made through STREETBEEFS.

We actually have this show called Adventure Life that is huge in Germany coming out to film a documentary on us this month and that what it’s going to focus on, the club aspect of STREETBEEFS.

Has anyone contacted you to do a TV series based on the club and your YouTube channel?

Yeah, we’ve gotten all kind of crazy offers, man. I’ll tell you, we got just a shitload of producers contacting me the first night the New York Times documentary dropped. I got notice five hours before it dropped and I thought maybe in a week or two we would get a few offers. Like, within an hour after it dropped, I was getting Facebook messages from all these producers. So long story short, they were all interested in having a TV show done about STREETBEEFS, so I had to choose and I finally went with one and we are in the process of working with them and getting a TV show. We also have two documentaries coming out.

Then, The Source Magazine did an article about us on their website. Then another rap magazine contacted us for an article. Which is cool because it’s from all angles, but I never want our message to be lost or our club misrepresented.

When I came across the club online, I was looking for something that was along the lines of street fighting, but still had that feeling of organization, and that’s when I found you guys. I also found another organization, ARROWS, that does very organized backyard fights.

I love ARROWS. They are well produced and, all things considered, it’s ran real well. Personally, I like it.

Yeah, it looks very legitimate as far as backyard fights go. There’s a ring, production value, and you can tell the guys getting in there really have martial arts experience.

Not to talk too much, but that’s something we’re really trying to work towards. For the first five years, it wasn’t something we cared about. We shot the fights, put them up there, put a description, and leave it at that. So now, were trying to cater to our fans and add production value. Recently, we’ve done things like and an intro to our videos, so we’re trying to improve production wise, but that was never our focus.

I’ve always felt a huge fear because I don’t want to distract from the goal and the goal is to stop people from murdering each other in the streets. I’ve had four friends over the last eight years that have got into violent street endeavors. For a town like this, it’s not a huge city, that’s just irregular, in my opinion. I shouldn’t know four people who have died violently, but I have three friends that were stabbed and one that was shot. It’s inspired me to take every dispute seriously.

Some people try to get me to not allow fights over petty issues, but the guys are going to fight whether we stepped in or not, and the guys that I knew that died, all their beefs were petty. One guy died over fifteen bucks. Just a little back story, he went to collect the money from a guy who owed him, he got into a street fight, and got stabbed in the leg. Which is no big deal, except he hit his femoral artery and he bled to death within five minutes.

So, any little dispute could lead to something awful if you let it go that route. So now when they fight they get it out of their system. And when we bring them in we always try to bring them in as part of a club so it takes the street mentality out of it a little bit.

Now, you guys deal with a lot of angry people. In the NYT documentary, you highlighted a fight involved with a very violent young man named Theo, who almost attacked you when approaching him to fight. Has a fight in the yard ever escalated an issue afterwards?

Most of the time, when they fight in the yard, it’s over, but “over” can mean a lot of different things. Now, over doesn’t always mean that they shake hands and it’s Kumbaya and everyone’s best friends afterwards. Over could mean that they are just no longer killing each other anymore and they aren’t interested in fighting in the streets anymore. Sometimes it’s to stop a death or stop someone from going to jail.

We also leave the option open that if guys want to come back that they can to get it out of their system. At least this way they’re doing it in a controlled setting and there is someone there who can apply CPR and first aid. So this way, we know they aren’t doing anything illegal and that they aren’t going to seriously hurt each other.

There have been a few incidents where it wasn’t completely solved and we heard that they were still kind of going at each other after they left here. We try to reach out to them and if they won’t listen, then we wash our hands with them. When we contact guys to fight we tell them that, as a man, if you come here to fight you have to let this go, you’re not going to be out in the streets fighting anymore and, if they do, they know we’re done with them.

In the NYT documentary, you guys also touch on people who don’t want to return to the yard because of losing previously, and maybe taking a shot to their ego. Does the club get a lot of people who are reluctant to solve an issue with you guys because of a previous experience in the yard?

I’ll put it this way. We rarely have people who come back to settle issues multiple times. If you were to meet Theo now you wouldn’t recognize him. He is a completely different person from the one he was in the documentary because he’s hung around us, he goes to the gym with us, we play football together, all the stuff I named before. We help shape these men into something a little better than what they were.

Back then; Theo had a lot of problems with a lot of people. He actually has an issue with a guy who keeps calling him out and will be fighting in the yard in April. He’s been training, I keep close contact with him, and he’s ready. He’s not worried about losing pride or face because he realizes he’ll keep his pride by fighting like a man instead of shooting somebody.

That’s great to hear.

Yeah, but we’ve had guys who have been in there multiple times. We have this Iraqi guy who has had issues with a couple of rednecks around town that have been calling him shit like “terrorist” and “sand nigger” and he’s brought two brothers to the yard this fall and he whooped both at them. Not at the same time. And he told me that they don’t bother him anymore, and that’s what we’re after.

I have seen a few of his fights. He looked like he would have been more of a for-sport guy.

Most of his are sport fights, but he does have about six beef fights. In each of our video descriptions, it will say whether it’s a sport or a beef fight.

He was another one in school. He was picked on and out casted, and we took him in with us and now he has a lot more respect in the area. It gets him out, he also plays football. We engage in a lot of different things, we all like sports.

He’s a great fighter. There’s another guy you guys call “The Olympian” that has got some serious skills, as well.

He’s a really great kid. And some of these guys come from really rough backgrounds: foster children, they don’t have good parents, etc., so I can relate. I always wanted to be a part of something and boxing gave me that and I want to give them that. Some people might see it and think it’s a bunch of savages fighting in their backyard, but that’s not what we’re trying to do.

Those people are going to be the ones that still look at the UFC, which is the fastest growing sport in the world, as human cockfighting and write it off.

That’s why I like talking to guys like you guys so we can get to tell our side of the story.

Something I really wanted to clear up was the legality of the club. You once said that the cops praised you for what you are doing, but do you ever run into any legal issues or are they willing to turn a blind eye for the chaotic good?

It’s 100 percent legal here in Virginia. There’s not a lot they can do about it, the reason is that this is no different than backyard football. And I’ve seen worse injuries playing football than we’ve had in the yard. We had one guy playing football who broke his arm and it was all twisted and the bone was sticking out. But nobody would tell us stop playing football. People don’t feel the same way about fighting, but it’s really just a sport, as long as we aren’t doing it in the streets. In Virginia, as long as you are doing a sport and not disturbing the neighbors then it’s fine.

Now, we did have an issue a few years ago with a guy’s parole officer who really had a hard on for us and desperately tried to get us shut down, so he did a few underhanded things to stop us. He was telling guys that if they fought that it would violate their parole. But they weren’t breaking any laws so how could they violate their parole? He went to a judge, did everything he could to shut us down, and it didn’t work.

The police have been overly cool and it makes me feel bad because I’m not the biggest fan of police and have posted ill of them on social media, but as a whole they’ve been great. They came one day because someone said we had weed in the yard, which is bullshit. We’ve got signs that say not alcohol and no drugs, but I think someone who had a grudge called them on us. They came and I let them search everybody’s bag and they didn’t find anything. But overall, I have nothing bad to say.

That’s good. I can’t say that I’m innocent from expressing outrage against police on social media because of what we see in the news and online. It’s hard to look at certain cases and not get angry.

Definitely, some of the stuff we see makes you want to lash out at them, but I’m quick to say that I don’t like when all races are stereotyped, so I try not to generalize about all cops.

Yeah, you definitely can’t say bad things about all law enforcement. But it’s great that they have been treating you guys well and realizing what you are doing for the community. Your city, Harrisonburg, Virginia, was once named the meth capital of the world. Does that play into a lot of beefs you see?

Not only was it the meth capital, but per capita it has the most unsolved murders in the United States, one of them being a police chief. And for a city of this size to hold those titles, it’s kind of a big deal. That should tell everyone it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

I’ve caught a lot of shit saying I’m misrepresenting the city, saying that’s not what it’s like, and that might be what it is for you, but that’s not the city I know. They want to imagine that it’s a college town and a nice little city. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not Chicago, you won’t get car jacked in broad daylight, but there are these seemingly isolated incidents that happen a little too frequently. I feel like if it’s two murders or two hundred, if I could stop just one, I’m happy.

Is meth still the main drug for confrontations?

A lot of our beefs have to do with drugs in general. For instance, Johnny fronts Bobby some pot he never paid for, or who sold bad coke. We get a lot of those. We also get a lot of situations where they felt that someone wore a wire during a drug deal and here, if you touch an informant, they’ll put you under the prison, so they try to get them to fight in the yard as kind of a loophole.

It does offer this alternative that I feel is better than two guys going to jail or two guys killing each other, because I feel like I’d rather have them settling it somewhere safe.

Some people say, “Why don’t you just have them talk out their problems?” But, if that was always an option, then we wouldn’t have had two world wars, and there would be peace in the Middle East right now. But the point is, there’s certain people who can’t talk it out and then it becomes choosing between the lesser of two evils. Do you let them battle it out like barbarians out in the street or try to control it so it doesn’t get out of hand?

Going back to what you were saying about it being looked at as backyard football. From experience, I have suffered injuries playing high school football that were far worse than anything that ever happened while I was training mixed martial arts. You look at guys like Shogun Rua and Wanderlei Silva who study “Vale Tudo” or “No holds barred” every day and can still be ready for a fight months do the line. So it’s easy for me to see how that makes a lot of sense.

Right? People ask why we only have one-minute rounds and it’s because we feel that three one-minute rounds is enough for inexperienced guys to land a few shots and get it out of their system, but not kill each other. You see more injuries the longer the rounds go on.

If you took away a sport because people could get hurt, you could really start banning people from every sport, so it’s crap, and people know it’s crap. If you look at it like a sport, which it is, you can’t single out fighting because there is a lot of sports people could get hurt doing.

One last thing. I’ve seen a lot of your videos, but have you ever fought in the yard?

I have six fights on the yard. I’ve had more, but not all of them go up because we try to choose the most exciting ones. Most of my fights aren’t up there because they are too brutal. YouTube kept flagging them and giving us a bunch of shit for them so we took them down. They had a little more blood. One fight I broke the guy’s nose, so it kept getting flagged.

You seem like a pretty chill guy, were any of your fights over disputes you had with someone else?

Actually, three of my six fights are over beefs. In person, I’m a really calm guy, but in the ring I’m a different person. We have a lot of racists in this area and, being a Black and Hispanic man, I’ve taken a lot of heat from local factions and we’ve taken it to the yard. Two of them were over race related beefs, the other was just one of my workout partners I had a falling out with that got a little heated and we needed to take it to the yard. Any of my videos, I fight under the name “Scarface.”

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.

No problem at all.

Conclusion

Overall, I learned a lot from my talk with Scarface. We touched on the legal and moral issues that surround the club and mixed martial arts as a whole and there is definitely something to be learned here. These guys are showing that this sport provides the structure and mental relief that some people need in their lives. I hope to see more people who have trouble with their environment finding mixed martial arts and it doesn’t have to be a backyard fight club, but a community gym for poverty-stricken youth. This outlet could be the difference between life and death.

To see more of STREETBEEFS, you can visit them online through their YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook page as well as through their New York Times documentary, Guns to Gloves. As always, stay safe and fight on.