“C’mon, eh!” Viral Kapp-Mosca fight hits Monday Night Football

It's not particularly surprising that video of septuagenarian CFL legends Joe Kapp and Angelo Mosca fighting at a alumni luncheon last week has gone viral; after all, how frequently do you see one 70-plus-year-old hit another one in the face with a cane? Still, it is notable just how far and wide it's spread. The video embedded in the original post received 463,974 views before YouTube yanked it, but that's not going to stop anyone; just searching "Kapp-Mosca" on there gives you a full page of video results.

The fight between Mosca and Kapp (seen at left and right above) also been mentioned everywhere from The New York Times to the BBC (which called them "American football rivals", funnily enough) to Sports Illustrated and CBS. It was also discussed on ESPN's Pardon The Interruption Monday (check out the audio at 18:19 here). Even with all that, perhaps the funniest reference yet came on ESPN's Monday Night Football NFL pre-game show, where Chris Berman (a noted CFL aficionado who also included Grey Cup highlights in their halftime show) included it in their famous "C'mon, Man!" segment. Here's video of what Berman did:

It's also notable that the whole panel cracks up over this, and I did quite enjoy Mike Ditka's "don't start a fight if you're on a cane" line (although you can debate which of these guys started it; Mosca made the first offensive comment caught on tape, Kapp escalated by shoving a flower in his face, then Mosca hit Kapp in the face with his cane twice and Kapp knocked Mosca down with a couple of punches). It's an incredible video, so it's quite understandable why everyone's still talking about it. Still, it's somewhat unfortunate that the incident has overshadowed the Grey Cup itself in many quarters; sure, this is some publicity for the CFL (and it's not entirely bad publicity; it speaks to the intensity of the game and its rivalries), but it really isn't the greatest way to promote the league (I'm not even sure if it can compete with references on Modern Family, The League and 30 Rock). People talking about the CFL in any fashion is nice, but alumni fights are less helpful for the long-term than a good on-field product.