Arkansas High School Game Turns Into WWE Royal Rumble With One Second Left On The Clock

If you’re going to start a fight in a basketball game, doing it with one second left in the fourth quarter is certainly a bold strategy.

That’s exactly what happened during the Arkansas 2A State Basketball Tournament, when an England High player decided the best way to close out the game was with a full-on sucker punch that immediately turned the court into absolute chaos.

Here’s the scene: Barton High had the game wrapped up. With literally one second left, Barton players had already started celebrating because the win was basically secured.

Then things took a hard left turn.

An intentional foul was committed with the clock almost completely gone, and in the middle of the confusion an England High player unloaded a sucker punch on a Barton player.

And just like that… it was on.

Benches cleared. Players rushed the floor. Fans started getting involved from the stands. For a brief moment the Arkansas 2A tournament turned into something closer to a low-budget Royal Rumble than a basketball game.

Officials and coaches scrambled to pull people apart while the arena tried to figure out how a game that was basically over turned into a full-blown melee.

The wild part is this wasn’t even the first time these two teams had problems.

Apparently this was the third fight between England High and Barton High this season, which raises the obvious question: how did we even get to a third meeting without someone realizing these teams might not exactly be best friends?

At this point the rivalry has basically graduated from basketball to straight-up bad blood.

In the end, Barton was still awarded the win since the game was essentially finished when everything blew up. But the story might not be over yet.

The state is now investigating the incident, and there’s a very real possibility Barton could still face consequences, including the nightmare scenario where they’re disqualified from playing in the state championship next week.