Ref: I may have misinterpreted your use of the word "freakish" - if you meant that in the sense of a "freak accident", I concur completely. I took it to mean that you thought the behaviour of the boys was bizarre ...

Another thought that has occurred to me is that boys in the fourteen-to-sixteen age group - those who are in the habit of occasionally duking it out, anyway - are in a transitional phase between low-risk playground fighting and high-risk adult male fighting. The fight that between twelve-year-olds can end with a bloody nose or cut lip, between seventeen-year-olds can end with a broken nose or broken jaw - or worse. Adolescent boys can easily underestimate both their own physical power as well as that of "the other guy". As well, the social and legal disapprobation is more severe for the older-boys/young-men. It is not unusual for boys in that transitional age to have one or two fights, and then to decide that the whole business is distasteful to them - they don't like getting hurt; they don't like hurting others; they don't like the approval of some of their peers and the disapproval of others, etc. That's why you'll often hear some grown man say, "The last time I got in a fight was in high school" - he had that fight, and decided thereafter to avoid fighting.