About

Fight of the Century is a series of TikTok videos in which users act out over-dramatic scenes between classmates using Ennio Morricone's composition The Ecstasy of Gold from the 1966 film The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The video format which became popular in September 2019, uses text labelling to identify typical classroom characters. The format served as a precursor for "But…" memes using The Ecstasy of Gold that gained popularity in mid-2020.

Origin

On August 12th, 2019, TikTok^[1] user @tyler_wilson uploaded Ennio Morricone's "The Ecstasy of Gold" to TikTok and created a dramatic video involving a student slapping a teacher (shown below). The video gained over 175,200 likes and 3,400 shares in two months.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/6724135073169313030

Spread

On September 25th, 2019, TikTok^[2] user @shapironator uploaded a video using @tyler_wilson's sound clip depicting classmates learning about World War II (shown below, left). The video received over 353,500 likes and 15,400 shares in a week. On September 30th, TikTok^[3] user @brock.stiv uploaded another popular fight of the century video which accumulated over 419,600 (shown below, center). The next day, TikTok^[4] user @thisaintjay uploaded the most popular iteration which garnered over 487,400 likes and 27,300 shares in a day (shown below, right).

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/6740511553310690565

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/6742657771172351238

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/6743045086235413766

As of June 10th, 2021, over 5,800 TikToks^[5] using the upload of the song by @tyler_wilson were posted.

Fight of the Century served as a precursor for "But…" memes using The Ecstasy of Gold that gained popularity in mid-2020.

The Ecstasy of Gold

The Ecstasy of Gold, also known as the Western Music Meme and "But…", refers to a series of sudden reveal memes set to the composition "The Ecstasy of Gold" by Italian composer Ennio Morricone from the soundtrack of the 1966 Spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. In the memes, a portion of a post is shown, with the part containing a controversial, daring or unusual statement revealed as the composition achieves its high point. In other memes, the song is used to highlight certain filmed action that goes against the established norms.