YouTube Gold: Rick Mahorn And Charles Barkley Brawl With The Bad Boys

With a couple of Blue Devil cameos

After the Kermit Washington/Rudy Tomjanovich incident in 1977, which saw Rudy T nearly die, the NBA considered the size and power of some of its would-be pugilists and wisely decided to rein things in. Heavy fines and suspensions would be handed out after any such future incidents, which obviously was meant to discourage future brawls.

It hasn’t always worked and when the thuggish Bill Laimbeer was in the league from 1979-1994, everyone wanted to tag that guy.

This happened when the Detroit Pistons played the Philadelphia 76ers in 1990 and Charles Barkley had had enough of the Bad Boy crap.

Interestingly, Rick Mahorn, who was a big part of the Bad Boy mystique, was on the 76ers roster and apparently his old teammates had it in for him: Isaiah Thomas, Dennis Rodman and Laimbeer all had issues with Mahorn.

It descended into a five-minute free-for-all.

There are some interesting cameos here: former Louisville coach Kenny Payne is shown on the sidelines for Philly. More interestingly the G-Man, Mike Gminski, is in red for the Sixers as is Johnny Dawkins.

And Dawkins gets the biggest interview afterwards, so make sure to stick around to see what the former Blue Devil has to say about the fight. It’s probably not advice he’s giving his Central Florida team today.