I love telling the story about winning a sumo wrestling contest in college. It was even less plausible than it sounds. Every time I mention it people give me this look like they’re trying to determine if there used to be a lot more of me and then I got really sick. It was just for the martial arts class I was in, so only about forty people, but all but maybe five of us were tall cis dudes. The goal was to make the other person be the first to step outside the ring. I was scrappy enough but I knew I stood no chance.
I thought it would be funny to do a Bugs Bunny thing so at the beginning of my first turn I puffed out my chest and gave my opponent a tough look and acted like I was ready to rumble. He ran at me and at the last moment I just… turned to the side. And he kept going, right out of the ring.
Of course everyone thought it was very funny that this actually worked, we laughed, and I prepared to get walloped in the next round.
But then it worked again.
I thought for sure everyone who lost to me was doing it for the bit, but then I realized that some of them were genuinely angry and arguing with the instructor, insisting that what I was doing was cheating. Maybe it was, but he didn’t seem to care, so I kept doing it. And I kept winning.
I don’t remember how many guys I vanquished through my repetitive strategy of “smash the dodge button” but I made very little physical contact with any of them and only had to actually wrestle the last guy. I only managed to best him by like snaking around his torso like a python while we grappled until his foot slipped and he stumbled out of the ring. And then I won. And everyone fucking hated me because there was absolutely no reason that should have worked more than once.
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