Six days ago, Fox television show Good Day New York hosted UFC TUF 20 fighters Tecia Torres, Heather Jo Clark, Lisa Ellis, and Angela Hill. The segment had the traditional makings of quirky morning television. Until anchor Greg Kelly’s masculinity was challenged by Tecia Torres. “Tecia that was you in the purple?” asks anchor Rosanna Scotto after viewing a clip of her fighting. “You’re tough, man.”
Greg Kelly stands still. Like a self-assured bull moose gazing over the swamp he’ll one day hand down to his first born moose son.
Then it happens, Scotto asks the question.
“Can you do that to Greg?” she continues. “I definitely can,” Torres answers quickly.
Kelly stammers, spurts of testosterone drowning his neural receptors. He collects himself and redirects the conversation, asking the women about their backgrounds. He asks if the girls ever fight “2 v 1,” and invites Tecia to “do something to Heather.” But it is too late.
It doesn’t matter what Tecia does to Heather. For Greg, there is no going back.
The set has become supersaturated with competitive energy and Angela Hill is a willing catalyst. Because she has had enough of his theatrical provocations, and says she wants to take him down. A single particle of masculine doubt touches the mixture and violence crystalizes.
Greg Kelly walks forward like a hunter. “I can’t hit back, that’s the whole thing, don’t you understand?” Then he drops without warning for a takedown. Untrained, but instinctual. Prehistoric.
They struggle. Hill secures a defensive guillotine and sprawls slightly in her high heeled shoes.
“He’s not done,” someone says. And it continues, Hill’s heels leaving trails on the polished floor.
She drags him down. His white pants and blue waistcoat draw together. He is bent over and fetal, having flashbacks of the womb.
“Alright, alright, alright, I give up,” he says.
“I give up.”
And it is over.
“How did I do?” he asks, enjoying the temporary shelter of a rhetorical question. There is no need for an answer.
“He was scared,” notes Scotto.
Yes, he was. And so were we.
