How I Met Your Mother

In the aptly named "The Fight," Ted tells his children the story of the only real fight he every got into.



It begins with Ted dumped at the altar and Barney describing how he fakes listening to conversations when his attention shifts to a hot woman. We cut to the bar, where we meet Doug, who has apparently been around all along and loves the entire gang. They arrive at the bar to find their booth occupied; Doug kicks out the group in the booth, and Lily and Robin take a seat while the men are called outside to fight the guys who had taken their booth.



At first, Robin is the only one in favor of the fight, but Ted decides that he needs the life experience of being in a fight so he jumps on board. Barney joins the fray as well when he hears how enthusiastic Robin is and she seems impressed by his willingness to step in. Ted and Barney finally go outside but find the men they're supposed to fight are lying unconscious on the ground; Doug beat them all up by himself, mistakenly thinking that Ted, Barney and Marshall were with him the entire time.



Doug heads back into the bar, and Barney makes up a "legendary" story about their fight. Ted tells him that no one would ever buy it, so Barney punches himself and then Ted. The guys follow Doug inside to cheers from the bar crowd. Doug buys a round of drinks for everyone except Marshall because as he sees it, Marshall was the only one in the group who didn't have his back.



Marshall, who says he believes the most manly men in the world are Crocodile Dundee and David Hasselhoff, gets mopey because everyone makes fun of him for not fighting and decides to visit Lily's and give her students a lesson on non-violence. His planned goes awry and the kids laugh at him and call him a wuss.



At the bar, while trying to impress a couple of women with their fight story, Barney and Ted run into the guys who they supposedly beat up. But this time they don't want to fight; they want to sue. Marshall knows that Barney and Ted would only have to pay a fine, but lets them think that they could go to jail. Scared, Barney and Ted confess what really happened. Robin, who considers fighting a turn-on, invites Barney to a hockey game, but Marshall spills the truth and ruins the image she had of Barney.



Back at the bar, Marshall gets the guys that Barney and Ted apparently beat up to drop the lawsuit. He tells them what really happened, and Doug finds out that his "friends" sold him out.



Doug gets angry and speculates about why Stella left Ted at the altar. Ted gets angry and punches Doug. Doug gets more angry and hits Ted back, knocking him out with one punch and thus concluding the only fight Ted's ever been in. Ted then visits Lily's students to teach them why it's wrong to fight. Like Marshall, the kids call Ted a wuss too.



Next we learn that the fight in the bar didn't end with Doug knocking Ted out. Marshall stepped up and punched Doug, knocking him out. It turns out that Marshall is not a wuss - he learned to fight as a kid thanks to his brothers and a game called "Murder Train."