Nerding Day: PFC (Patreon)

Oh no, you got your fetish in my athletic event! You got your athletic event in my fetish. Things are going to get sexy, punchy, and confusing this week as we talk about the PFC: Pillow Fight Championships. It's the Muppet Babies version of the UFC. It's what the Slap Fighting Championship would be if its parents had hugged it more. It's competitive tickling with an absolutely equal amount of pervy energy.

Now, if you're thinking, wow, that logo is pretty similar to the UFC logo, so did the UFC, and they did sue the PFC over their trademark. PFC agreed to make extensive changes to their logo to distinguish it from the Ultimate Fighting Championship logo. They changed the logo from red to orange, red's less sexy cousin, and added some expository text explaining that they are not the UFC but the gentler, hornier version of the UFC.

I should stop saying that the PFC is horny because, in truth, they've taken their little freak sport in a much weirder direction than that. The first-ever professional pillow fight occurred in Bulgaria, and it featured two slender women in pigtails spinning at each other like they were in a Sailor Moon transformation sequence. One even fought with a silky pink pillow.

At some point after this fight, however; the Pillow Fight Championship decided it wouldn't be about sex. The majority of the fighters they feature in their advertising are big beefy men, and the market they appear to be trying to reach is families. You know how sometimes you want to take your family out for a nice rousing evening of bloodsport but don't want your kid to get bummed out by all of the blood? Well, the PFC is your solution. Watch a man get jacked in the head sixty-five times with little to no lasting brain damage, almost guaranteed!

People who go to public fights famously hate violence, you see. This company has found a hole in the market that does not exist and they are going to pretend to fill it with the power and majesty of combat pillows. The patent on those is pending because it's hard to explain on paper why the world needs an eighty-dollar pillow that hurts.

The scoring system for the PFC is simple. You know how when you were a kid and you had pillow fights, your parents would say, "Don't hit your little brother in the head?" The PFC is exclusively about headshots. One headshot equals one point. A 360 spin plus a headshot is three points. Knockdowns are five points, and a leg strike that unbalances the opponent is one point. If the fighter breaks the pillow anywhere but the handles, they get three points. This bloodless battle still rewards violence; it's just a softer, cuddlier violence, like when the Care Bears kick No Heart’s ass.

PFC's rules include real bummers, like "no spitting, cursing, or foul language" and "all fighters are expected to give 100% effort and behave with complete sportsmanship." So you'll get to watch two perfect gentlemen bap each other in the face in an extremely sportsmanlike way. And no, two grown people having a pillow fight does not become less embarrassing when you imbue it with the noble honor of brave warriors.

The "perform special moves as defined" means cartwheels and backflips, which the most entertaining fighters will parlay into a headshot. The fighters come from different backgrounds, and the PFC is clearly desperate to recruit anyone tangentially related to MMA, but all sports seem on an equal playing field when the event is padded kitty cat tantrum. A recent match-up pitted a "seventeen-year-old pillow-fighting prodigy" against an "endurance record holder for the world's longest continuous pickleball game". Those men pillowed so hard.

I'm going to give you a rundown of the most recent PFC event posted on their YouTube channel, which has over twelve thousand subscribers. It took place in Columbus, Ohio, at a charity event for firemen called "Guns and Hoses." The vibe of the event was mixed. Audience members were either dying laughing or so pissed off to be witnessing this.

The intro video for the competition features a championship belt with the words "IT'S A THING" engraved on it. Which I think is an overarching ideal of the PFC. They know competitive pillow fighting is a weird novelty, but also, they can't legally hit anyone with other things in front of children, so they're leaning into the corniness of it while also presenting it as the peak of athleticism. I think that's kind of fun. We should add one goofy element to all serious sports. I would watch the Olympics more if they made all the runners wear big floppy hats or if every water polo team had to have two geese.

Past PFC events have been able to pull in exactly one major sponsor, and that is Dr Pepper. They are very proud of that Dr. Pepper sponsorship and mention it constantly. The March 2024 match could only get one sponsor, an oral probiotic for people with sinus problems called BioNaze. They also heavily advertised the PFC shop where, don't forget, you can purchase your eighty-dollar combat pillows!

An announcer comes out for introductions, starting with the fact that they are sanctioned by the "nocturnal combat association." This title is way too cool for what is actually happening here. The Nocturnal Combat Association is clearly a sci-fi organization that trains sleepwalkers in karate and forces them to do secret missions, starring Jackie Chan. Two sports commentators break in and start talking over the announcer, so it's difficult to hear what else he has to say. One commentator begins, "Athletes, man, what am I gonna say? It's all about the athleticism." So that's the kind of bold commentary we'll get throughout the match!

The fighter in blue, Leo "Capoeira" Carvahlo, comes out and does a bunch of flips, winning our hearts but, sadly, not the fight. The winner, Terrell Jenkins, is your typical boring MMA guy. In the second round, we get to watch the endurance pickleball player versus the seventeen-year-old boy whose parents probably thought this would be less embarrassing than letting him get a tribal tattoo. The teenager actually wins that fight. He seems like he's really studied the rules and developed a strategy that involves a lot of spins, which others are reluctant to try, mostly, I think, because it doesn't super cool, but it is worth three points if you're willing to dance a little for them.

Hauley Tillman, the current PFC champ, enters the ring with the belt to pillow a man who goes by Chocolate Thunder. These two keep laughing during the fight, and the announcers say at one point, "I mean, they're smiling at each other, but they don't mean those smiles." These two are pawing at each other like silly raccoons with pillow arms. They mean the smiles! Tillman doesn't win and then sort of runs off with his belt anyway, little scamp, which is a classic ending to a pillow fight.

Parker Appel, who has never lost a pillow fight, according to the announcers, is up next. His opponent Danilo Gurgel is smiling so big at the start of this fight, he must love getting pummeled in the head. Appel remains undefeated but Gurgel clearly had a great time and got hit in the head so much.

Now it's semi-final time, with the teen boy vs. the boring man who did not do a flip in round one. And it gets a little too close to real sports for a bit. An adult man should not be allowed to hit a teen boy this hard with any object. At one horrific point, the pillow wraps around the teenager's neck and knocks him to the ground, which results in the fight being called early for Terrell Jenkins, who absolutely dominated a child with a pillow like a fun uncle who suddenly becomes less fun when the pillow fight gets too serious. He brought real strangulation murder energy to this pillow whimsy.

Parker Appel beats Chocolate Thunder and now has to fight a man who bodied a little boy and a really good dancer to win the title. The PFC has somehow managed to wrangle the belt away from the man who dashed off camera with it, and the winner of the final fight turns out to be Terell Jenkins. I think he got less tired in his first two fights than Parker Appel and won on the sleepover second wind energy alone.

Jenkins reluctantly puts on the fashionable belt he won in a pillow fight, and the crowd…continues to remain pretty neutral on the whole thing. A few of them seem openly disappointed that nobody kissed. None of them look excited to invest in combat pillows.

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