Same age, grew up in the rural southern US and this was my experience in middle and high school. Lots of fighting. Everyone who wanted to "be somebody" was under pressure to participate in it. Winning meant advancing in social rank. At some point the school cracked down and the suspension for fighting was 10 days. After that it was lots of meeting people at such and such location after school or at some party on Friday night to settle things.

Definitely tapered off the last couple years of high school, but some of the rougher kids continued to engage it. Those kids pretty quickly got into serious enough trouble that they ended up in jail, expelled, on probation. That quieted things down a good bit.