Cardboard Tube Fighting Tournament

Sat., July 11, 12:30 p.m., free, grassy area across from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Ben Franklin Parkway, tubeduel.com.

by Morgan Davis

[ action ]

Pull out your Pop-Tarts boxes and wrapping paper rolls — it's time to fight the way wars were meant to be fought. With cardboard.

Ravin Pierre, a member of Seattle's Cardboard Tube Fighting League, is responsible for bringing this tournament to Philly. He says 250 tubes will be provided, but has no idea how many people will turn out. "I'm seeding new groups in Philly and New York," says Pierre. "The hope is that some people locally will continue the group or seed other locations."

According to the league's lore, cardboard tube fighting isn't new. People used tubes as a whacking instrument during the Cardboard Age, which occurred just before the Iron Age. Since then, the cardboard tube has evolved, as has its power to maim and welt its victims. Some even suspect that America's founding fathers intended the phrase "right to bare arms" not to refer to firearms, but to the "elite militias of cardboard-tube-wielding ninjas." Well then.

Regardless of its history, newbies should be warned: Cardboard tube fighting isn't for the faint of heart. Expect to be bludgeoned by your opponents, and whacked until you have welts.

Sat., July 11, 12:30 p.m., free, grassy area across from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Ben Franklin Parkway, tubeduel.com.