I went to my first fight in the 1980s, at the Irvine Marriott. Reagan-era yuppies coming in after work at the brokerages, still in their suits and suspenders, getting a little drunk and a little rowdy about a sport of which they knew little. Too trendy to last.

I went to my second fight Thursday night, again at the Marriott. Sold out. Hardly a suit in the place. More than 1,400 fans, a good deal of whom seemed to know the sport and the fighters themselves. Twenty-five years after Battle in the Ballroom started, promoter Roy Englebrecht has shown why he's qualified to teach MBA students.

I immediately secured what I believe to be an exclusive with one of the ring girls, Amanda Stronegger, 20, El Modena High Class of 2007.

"What does a ring girl do when she's not being a ring girl?" I asked.

"I work at Hooters in Riverside," she said. "I'm also a go-go dancer at Sevilla in Long Beach." Meant to ask whether Obama-care will help her, but I got distracted.

For three of the seven fights, I sat cover-your-beer close. At ringside, sweat and blood come a-spraying at you, and you see and hear punches in a way that greatly diminishes even 20 feet back. The only thing that compares is watching "Raging Bull" on a big screen. As it happened, seated to my right was one of the judges, Marty Denkin, who so looks the part that he played a ref in "Raging Bull" and two "Rocky" films.

I wondered what this old-school guy thinks about another change I saw from the 1980's: Two mixed martial arts fights along with the boxing. In one, a cut opened on a fighter's head, sending blood all over both fighters and the ring. Another ended when Tyler Weathers of Lakewood employed something called a "guillotine choke. Good times.

Story by Frank Mickadeit
OC Register