When Tillman, the champ, entered the ring, he swung the pillow at his opponent TJ Jenkins like a nunchuck, whipping it from right to left, up to down, creating such a fury, it was hard to know how many points were scored. The crowd hooted and hollered and pumped their fists. Fans dressed in pajamas waved their pillows in the air.
It was 90 seconds of pure and utter chaos. Bags flying, heads smashing, people flipping and spinning, the makeshift arena shaking like an earthquake. They dashed from side-to-side. They knocked each other back and dipped their head to avoid being hit.
When the round finished, Tillman ripped off his shirt and stared down the crowd.
“Yeah!” Tillman yelled, nodding his head.
But then the announcement came. The champ lost.
The ESPN commentators were stunned.
“Wow! What an upset!”
The crowd booed. Jenkins, his opponent, just stood there.
Tillman collapsed to a squat on the floor. He stabilized his left arm on the ring. He held up his right arm in disbelief. He was done for the night. It was his first loss in professional pillow fighting.
When Tillman left the ring, he fumed. He told anyone who would listen: He had been cheated. He told the crowd. He told the organizers. He told reporters. (After the bout, Pillow Fight Championship officials said that they reviewed the film and confirmed the results.)
“I’m not a sore loser,” Tillman said. “But I know for a fact that I put my all into this. I trained every day.”
Tillman is a master of nunchucks and a karate black belt with professional MMA experience. He teaches fighting classes. But for him, The Ocho wasn’t a side gig. This was his chance — to fight on ESPN, to make a name for himself, to further his pillow fighting career, to represent his home. Nearly 200 people gathered in Liberty City, a neighborhood in Miami, for a watch-party, he said.
“(Pillow fighting) is so important because of where I’m from,” he said. “… It’s a hood. It’s projects. A lot of broken homes and low-budget projects. Some of my kids don’t have parents. Single moms, single dads. And I’m like the only thing good going on in my little area. They’re proud of me. They love me to be the PFC champion.”
He didn’t care about the people who thought pillow fighting was some joke. It mattered to him.
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“It might not make sense to nobody else,” he said. “But I do this for my kids.”
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