Montreal police say they’re powerless to stop a sperg fighting ring that’s operating in the city’s east end. “There’s nothing illegal about paying autistic people to beat each other up,” says Sgt. Larry Batista of the SPVM. “Yes, we consider these boxing matches to be in terrible taste, and they are morally questionable and certainly unethical, but they are not, as of this moment, illegal.”

Karl Fichier, the 36 year old mastermind behind the Sperg Fighting Ring, says he got the idea to pay autistic people to punch each other after spending a few hours on Twitter. “Twitter is an online service dedicated to autistic people yelling at each other over the internet,” says Louis. “It’s hilarious! My idea was to give Twitter a physical presence in the real world, and that’s how I came up with Sperg Fighting. We offer autists a sizeable chunk of money to take parts in boxing matches which we stream over the internet. People bet on their favourite fighters. It’s all done in good fun, and in many ways, it’s a lot healthier than fighting over twitter.”


Not everyone shares Karl’s enthusiasm for an autistic boxing club. “It’s exploitation, it’s insulting, it’s dehumanizing,” claims mental health specialist Tray Serieux. “We’ve come a long way over the last year in shining attention on the problems that autists face in our society, and then idiots like Karl come along and set us back decades. Acceptance for autism has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, but autistic people still face a lot of hostility in the real world, and clubs like his encourage people to make light of the challenges and difficulties neuro atypical people face.”

Karl doesn’t see it that way. “My club is a critique of the way social media companies like Twitter and Tumblr capitalize on the social ineptitude of autists,” says Karl. “Think about it. People read Twitter and Tumblr to laugh at these people, and Twitter and Tumblr profit from their humiliation through ad clicks. People aren’t angry at me because I’m paying autistic people to fight each other, they’re angry because i’ve given them faces. They’re perfectly fine with watching anonymous spergs fight online, but bring it into the open and suddenly it’s the end of the world.”