The View from the Spaghetti Factory

“Generally, to start, it’s the one-to-one combat. Two eighteen-month-old babies are placed in the pen, made from old crates or sometimes a plastic paddling pool. They’re held apart when the bets are being made, and then the Baby Man makes his noise (that’s the signal we’re going to start) and we let them go, and they hit and scratch and kick and do whatever they want to do to maim or stop or floor the other kid.”

The boy, aged two, is seen crying after being punched in the face by the three-year-old girl and is told by one of the four women in the room “not to be a wimp or a faggot” and to hit her back.

The four women, all from the same family, are heard laughing as the toddlers are urged to keep on fighting.