Give Glen Leonard's Nauvoo history, our Bachman's Heavens Resound (history of Saints in Kirtland) or Fire and The Sword (history of the church in Missouri) a read. For that matter Arrington's bio of Brigham covers Johnston's army incident well.

They all send the same message. When the saints turned to violence two things happened. 1-they weren't good at it and often got beat because they were peaceful folks and 2- it often made things worse. Especially Sidney Gibson's "Salt of the Earth" talk which was very inflammatory and served to make matters in Missouri significantly worse.
My point here is that folk history aside (Yes Joseph was a strong dude who was boo shrinking violet) the Lord's purposes and people are served better when we strive to emulate Christ's peaceful example.

Asking 20 something's to hit other 20 something's four hours and not expect brawls is a tall order, so we should be grateful ugly incidents like this don't happen more often. But when they do we shouldn't glorify or even when the other dudes, and I think Memphis shoulders most off the blame here, are the aggressors.

At least those are my 2 cents. But you know I'm just a Ute fan so it's probably all alcohol induced heathen hate talking so discount it appropriately.