Boxing moves out of the box and into the mall

Fight Club was the beginning, now it’s moved out of the basement, it’s called Project Mayhem. - Tyler Durden On an April morning in 2008, a low-profile state-owned TV channel DD Sports was touching unprecedented viewership levels, perhaps never touched before. And though they crashed as soon as boxer Vijender Singh lost to Cuban Emilio Correa (5-8) in middleweight semi-final at the Beijing Olympics, we can retrospectively call this the beginning of India’s fight club; the curious, proud masses who tuned in to a sport they’d never watched before. The club was only touted to grow bigger with a World Series of Boxing (WSB) coming up, as cheering for an Indian franchise in a global competition pitting global cities against one another seemed like a patriotic idea. Vijender, who meanwhile had soared in the public eye to be a hero of cricketing proportions, told this writer a year later in an interview how kicked he was about it. “Concept toh fentaastic hai. Lalit Modi ki talaas hai hamare ko” he had exclaimed in Haryanvi Hindi. Cut to last Friday night ie week 4, Season 2 of the series, the concept still feels ‘fentaastic’ for it brought 300-odd spectators to a Mumbai mall to cheer their home team. For the first time, this fight club moved out of occasional TV tune-ins to buying tickets to witness a bout. And though it wasn’t exactly the ‘mayhem’ Tyler had caused in the 1999 film, this out-of-the-box boxing match delivered on its first and perhaps only premise – entertainment. [caption id=“attachment_154140” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Images from the World Series Boxing at a Mumbai Mall. Image by Malay Desai”]  [/caption] Starting off with Union Sports Boss Ajay Maken’s brief, minister-ly speech and some whistles for cricket show hottie Mayanti Langer, the bout was a series of firsts. It was the first time an average Mumbaite was witnessing a game at parking area P4 at Inorbit mall and not at Wankhede or DY Patil stadiums. The players suddenly felt accessible, shorn of the slick veneer that envelops cricket stars and the stands, (fuller than those at Wankhede on the first three days of the last cricket test), felt less intimidating without the jingoism. Also, it almost felt like something was amiss without multiple security cover en route to the arena, but it was good to not have been felt all over the body by various cops. Bout time. Mumbai Fighters were playing the higher placed LA Matadors in a best of five rounds contest (of different weight categories), aptly positioned as Bollywood v/s Hollywood. But a looming question for the home crowd was – how to cheer, what to shout? Star pugilist Akhil Kumar missing due to injury didn’t help matters, but then the show began. Amidst smoke machines and a (rather lame) theme song called Dhishoom dhishoom (wow, utterly unpredictable) appeared a boyish ‘Jitender’, after his American counterpart. Later, some rustic punches and collective gasps started the haphazard cheering: “Jee-tu, Jee-tu!” Interestingly, one of the suited home team owners even walked up to a stand and instructed spectators on getting their hoots right amidst the punches. The Bhiwani boy won Round I, following the dramatics of the finishing bell and a white referee holding up his hand. Next up was Pune boy Siddharth Varma. The spectators, now well-equipped, were more animated. ‘Siddhu’ played to the gallery too, with tiny jigs and ‘hit my face’ gestures to the ‘gora’ opponent, inviting more woots. At one point, the cheers grew so loud, we’re sure some of the organisers would’ve got goosebumps. And just as his namesake character in the Hindi film Ghulam – also a rookie boxer - had done against a local goon in its final sequence, Siddhu won the battle. As the next two bouts were unremarkable and comparatively silent as they featured ‘gora’ fighters playing for Mumbai, we’d rather use this space to comment on the masala on show. The usual suspect songs – J_aan mein dum, Dhan-dhana-dhan Goal_ and even Kolaveri di were played to amuse; while the cheer girls danced in-between bouts to De Ghuma ke and even Chammak Challo. Where’s the context, one thought, before realising this is the best crowd-pulling music possible, for absence of Bollywood films on boxing. The final bout, between heavyweight Paul ‘the machine’ Koon of Mumbai (quickly called Chris Gayle by the crowd, and some racist names) and Spaniard Javier Torres was the night’s biggie and it delivered too. The casual swagger of both the boxers, the thump of glove hitting flesh and the intense, sweaty looks were the biggest advertisements for populist boxing for an Indian city. Its result seemed inconsequential but ‘Chris Gayle’ won a hard-fought bout. End of the night, and though the home team made a clean 5-0 sweep and the crowd walked away gratified, truth to be said this shopping centre version of boxing’s IPL avatar is not ‘one’ of the many ways to garner eyeballs, it is one of the only. WSB’s first season in the US had bled the franchisee’s moneys and had limped to a finish, with the owners shifting bouts from big-ticket arenas to smaller venues such as nightclubs for lack of attendance and more significantly, to cut costs. Now the move has been made in India and it’s too early to judge whether the spectators have tasted blood. Though many of them are expected to return to the parking lot next Friday for Mumbai Fighters’ round with Astana Arlans, it will take more boxing contests at unconventional venues across India for the masses to think this concept is fentaastic indeed.