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VIDEO: Brawling Senior Citizens, Kapp And Mosca, At Football Reunion

Five days later, video of two 70-plus year old guys trading blows on stage during a Canadian Football League alumni luncheon in Vancouver is still getting clicks and still drawing lots of attention from the cable news networks, blogs and websites.

In case you haven't heard, as The Vancouver Sun explained, it seems that former quarterback Joe Kapp and long-retired defensive lineman Angelo Mosca still don't seem to like each other very much.

Kapp, who would go on to quarterback the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL, played for the B.C. Lions of the Canadian league in the early '60s. Mosca was with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. In the 1963 Grey Cup game (the league's championship), Hamilton beat B.C. 21-10 and Mosca became famous (or infamous) for what his rivals say was a late hit on Lions running back Willie Fleming.

Friday at the reunion, the pugnacious Kapp tried to give the equally feisty Mosca some flowers. Mosca didn't like them being waved in his face. He swatted at Kapp's hand. Kapp slapped Mosca's arm. Mosca started swinging his cane. And then things really got wild, with Kapp punching Mosca in the face — sending Mosca tumbling.

There are many copies of the video on the Web. Here's the most-viewed as of now. Note: Mosca does tell Kapp where he can put the flowers, and as you can imagine it's not a vase. So if you don't want to hear a common expletive, don't click play.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that Kapp says he apologized to Mosca afterward and says he's not proud of what happened. "I did not start it," Kapp told the newspaper. "I never started a fight in my life. Quarterbacks are supposed to be smarter than that. And I didn't start this one."

From Hamilton, though, TheSpec.com quotes Mosca as saying Kapp was needling him well before the fight. Prior to the luncheon, according to Mosca, "I said 'how are you doing?' He says 'go (expletive) yourself.' "

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.