ESPN’s Friday Night Fights will be broadcasting live from the Times Union Center in Albany, NY on Friday, May 18th.

The card so far includes a Super Middleweight bout pitting Jason “Monstruo” Escalera (13-0-0 12 KO) against Nick “Machine Gun” Brinson (9-1-1 5 KO). The event is headlined by Ray Serrano (18-0-0 8 KO) vs. Karim Mayfield (15-0-1 9 KO) for the NABO Welterweight Championship.

Also appearing on the card will be local fighter Kevin Rooney (4-1-0 2 KO) taking on Albany native Nick Castaldi in his professional debut.

Mike Rivest has more.

A couple days later, I heard of a blog post (not on the Times Union website) that said there was no way that there were 3,527 people in the arena. Really?

Yes, Tim. Really.

In case you need a refresher, I presented my case for why 3,527 was a preposterous figure:

My initial and continued estimate of 700 to 800 people at this event on Saturday is, I’m being told by others who were there, me being kind and bad at estimating crowd size. Which, by my own admission, I am. Others have said maybe 1200 or so, which I’d accept. But given how many sections were all but completely empty and all of the empty space on the floor, that number reported by Wilkin is literally impossible.

Tim, who either didn’t read the post or wanted to intentionally misrepresent my statements, said that I was claiming 700. Which I wasn’t, I said 700-800 but admitted that I was bad at estimating crowd sizes in that range and could be as high as 1200. From his article:

I have been at enough events in the arena — from basketball to hockey to, now boxing — to give an accurate head count. And, this was not my head count. This came right from the top, from arena general manager Bob Belber.

Yeah, Tim, but see, that’s the problem – you said there were 3,527 people in the arena. From your initial filing:

The fights will be back at the TU Center on April 28. A six-bout card was held at the Arena Saturday night and 3,527 people showed up.

I’m sure Tim and others will claim I’m arguing semantics and nit-picking, but I’m not. There is a BIG difference between telling people what the reported attendance was (“an announced attendance of 3,527″) and telling them straight out that “3,527 people showed up.” GM Bob Belber, who you quoted, himself acknowledged as much every so slyly.

But first:

Belber was a little ticked to hear that there were people who questioned the announced attendance. He said he does remember a night where there was a crowd of about 700 (maybe less) at a Devils hockey game on a snowy night.

Just one night? To quote myself in my initial reply to that reported attendance, c’mon now. Bob, if you’re reading this, I apologize if you’re offended that myself and several others in attendance at the event deigned to make our own judgment and exercised some skepticism towards the figure you provided. Unfortunately, sometimes people are going to make observations and say them out loud and they might not run hand in hand with what you’d like other people to hear. There’s no reason, though, to be “ticked off” that someone would dare do something like exercise some common sense. Life’s too short for all that. Besides, this is a non-issue. Most people will believe you over me anyway, one because you’re the GM of the Times Union Center and they don’t realize it’s your job to do this sort of thing, two because I’m just a dude with a blog, and three because not enough people showed up to the goddamn thing to say either way how many people they think were there.

Besides, even you said:

“Sure, some were comps, and there were probably some people who didn’t show up.”

I think a lot didn’t. I won’t go into it again, but I refer you back to what I initially posted. The floor was MAYBE three-quarters filled, sides in front of and behind press row maybe half, to the left and right were barren. The upper sections were completely blocked off. If that’s 3,257 people, then wow, we must’ve been in Dallas Stadium and not realized it!

This part did make me chuckle.

“What would we have to benefit?” Belber said when asked about inflating the number. “People can say whatever they want, everyone has a right to their opinion.”

I was there. That count was accurate. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Firstly: what would the General Manager of the Times Union Center have to benefit by perpetuating the number of tickets sold combined with number of tickets given away as comps or circulated through the area as an attendance figure rather than actual physical asses in the seats, just like every other arena and promotion across the country does?  SERIOUSLY? It’s his job! We’re not gonna touch that? Okay then.

Ah well. Appeal to authority rules all, I guess. The good news is Star Boxing will be back in April and the attendance will be even better because they’ll have learned so much from this first show about crowd expectations (as distasteful as they may be to some), have more fighters on the card, get better publicity, and have Evander Holyfield in attendance. Which, if the crowd last Saturday was 3,527, should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 screaming fans.

Skip ahead to 0:46 so you can catch the AMAZING transition effect~!

On the replay, it looks like it was Hanks landing a hard and straight left to Pedro’s shoulder that dislocated it. I remember that punch and I thought Hanks had completely whiffed on it, but it looks like it hit flush on the ball of the shoulder. Which, well, that’ll do it.

I was at the same press table as Tim. I don’t know him enough to even say “he’s a nice guy, but…” so this isn’t anything personal. But there is absolutely no way in Hell there were a thousand people at that event, let alone that number he reported. That was the number, I assume, given to him by the promoter. That same promoter also claimed at the weigh-in that 6,000 tickets had been or would be sold.

Let’s look at the “center stage” layout that was used for boxing:

In the layout shown above, which is the layout used for professional wrestling and boxing, the maximum capacity is anywhere from 14,000 to 17,000.

First, take out the entire second tier. It was completely blacked off. Also, all those floor seats? They only laid out sections 1-8, and probably about three-quarters (being generous) of what’s shown there.

So already, knocking out those seats, we’re already at a maximum capacity was probably at or around 8,000. Meaning if that figure Wilkinson reported was accurate, it’d mean the arena was half full. But it wasn’t even close.

Let’s break it down further.

First tier: let’s say sections 101 to 110 were right behind press row (it was either them or sections 116 to 124). Those sections were littered with fans here and there, but were probably about 40% filled (again I’m being very generous). Opposite press row, sections 116 to 124, were about the same if not less. Sections 109 to 115 and sections 125 to 130 were more or less empty. On the left side almost literally; on the right side I would be very kind in saying there were forty people at most.

Then there’s the floor. Section two had six people in it. Sections 3 and 6-8 only had the first six or seven rows filled. I only passed Section 4 once and it was completely out of my line of sight, but when I did cross it, it had maybe a few dozen spectators seated at about the scheduled bell time of 7:30pm.

Taking all of that into account, there is absolutely no way in Hell there were 3,527 people at the arena that night. I wish there were, trust me. I think at the next event in April (it’s been announced as official), with more local talent and the presence of Evander Holyfield, they might meet that. But they did not on Saturday.

My initial and continued estimate of 700 to 800 people at this event on Saturday is, I’m being told by others who were there, me being kind and bad at estimating crowd size. Which, by my own admission, I am. Others have said maybe 1200 or so, which I’d accept. But given how many sections were all but completely empty and all of the empty space on the floor, that number reported by Wilkin is literally impossible.

Of course Star Boxing and the Times Union center is going to fudge their numbers. That’s what promoters do. I have no doubt that there were more than three thousand tickets floating around the area, given to businesses, etcetera. For the first boxing event in fifteen years and in a market like ours, you’d be stupid not to paper the Hell out of the show. It’s also not a disastrous result given the reasons I already cited and the need for Star Boxing to gradually build their brand and get fans acquainted with their fighters. As anyone from Ares Promotions to WWE will tell you, building a market for personality-driven combat sports and/or sports entertainment, it’s not a sprint.

But that’s where reporters are supposed to come in. Just because a promoter or venue reports an attendance figure doesn’t mean you can’t, as a reporter, use simple observational techniques and common sense to express skepticism as to its accuracy. In fact, I feel that it’s really your obligation to, and that Wilkin didn’t I can only attribute to him either being very distracted that evening or lazy.

The reason I didn’t watch the Super Bowl is because after the KO at the TU and UFC 143 on Saturday night, I had my fill of shitty sports fans for the weekend.

I covered Star Boxing’s KO at the TU on Saturday nightfor the Knick Ledger and already documented the bad behavior by members of the crowd on this space. After the fights in Albany, I was able to catch the main event of UFC 143. What I saw was Carlos Condit executing a technically and intellectually flawless game plan against a very dangerous and heavily favored Nick Diaz to win the Interim UFC Welterweight Championship. He used the cage and Nick Diaz’s flat-footed striking style to his advantage, negating his reach with exceptional footwork and maneuverability while frequently moving back in to engage and out-strike his opponent in all but one round. After five rounds, Condit was given the Unanimous Decision win. Nick Diaz was not happy. In his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, he complained that Condit ran away from him the entire fight and said he didn’t sign up to chase guys that wouldn’t fight him. He then claimed, right on the spot, that he was quitting the sport over the decision.

His temper tantrum, fueled by frustration and mental illness, shoveled coal into the boisterous fire of abhorrent sports fans online. Like Diaz, they were vocal and angry, providing nothing except insults and vulgar language to back up their ridiculous claim that Condit “ran away” from Nick Diaz or somehow didn’t earn a win.

Needless to say, I agreed with the decision. Rather than recount the reasons why, I’ll just send you over to Ben Fowlkes at MMAFighting, who already laid it out plainly yet eloquently. In short, Nick Diaz was out-fought, out-smarted, and as was evidenced by his face after the fight, beat the Hell up by his opponent.

It was a great night to be a combat sports fan, and a frustrating one if you weren’t. I put the emphasis on sport because I don’t think the latter care much about the sport aspect of it, nor will they ever. You can’t call yourself a fan of boxing or MMA and still support the reaction seen and heard on Saturday night. That’s not criticism, it’s bloodlust.

If you still insist on it, all I can say is that this just isn’t the sport for you. If you’re one of those people that was  unhappy with Carlos Condit’s flawless performance and/or the fantastic 10-round battle between Sahib Usarov and Yan Barthelemy at the Times Union Center, I can only suggest you go find something else that’s more your speed and fitting to your tastes. Maybe dog fighting or old VHS copies of Faces of Death. Or, better yet, go start a fight in a bar. There’s no better view of the action, and it’s sure to be violent and end quickly.

Leave the sport to real sports fans.

KO at the TU highlights local boxing talent – me for the Knick Ledger

Joe Hanks defends title, wins by TKO – Mike Rivest for the Troy Record

My other, non-professional thoughts:

It was actually a really entertaining night. The crowd wasn’t nearly what promoters were hoping it would be, but I think that anything running at the Times Union Center is better than what they’ve been putting on the last few years. It’s a great venue for boxing and a larger crowd would have shown that. I think, given time and the proper star power behind it, boxing at the Times Union Center could really take off.

That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news: some of the fans that were there kind of sucked.

Saturday was my first experience sitting in press row for a fight card. The hard part wasn’t not cheering, it was having to keep my mouth shut while a group of drunken slobs behind me literally screamed racial slurs, cursed up a storm, and made homophobic comments during the semi-main event. All this with children within earshot.

The worst part is that they loudly identified themselves as employees of Professional Fire Restoration Services, a major sponsor of the event. They screamed the owner’s name every time his commercial came up on the screen, then later in the evening while screaming “hit him with the dirty bomb,” “your boyfriend called and wants to know how the fight’s going,” and “let’s go Punjab” at Russian fighter Sahib Usarov, they joked that they were “gonna get fired” by their employer, Daniel “DJ” Johnson. They also, among other things, identified a black fighter as “50 Cent.” At one point during intermission, a few of us left press row and returned to find the top of what looked like a milkshake thrown from their area onto our table. It was really disgusting and unfortunate and, unfortunately, marred some really excellent contests for the people around them.

It just sucks that the crowd, at a disappointing 600 to 800 (if that), was overshadowed and perhaps unfairly represented by what was a very minor but very vocal contingent of drunk, racist, homophobic clowns.

Other than that? Good night of fights. Other thoughts:

• Kevin Rooney looked great. There was a strange moment in the post-fight interview, however, when his father and trainer announced with a straight face that he wanted to get his son to fight four times a month. I asked around after he said that and apparently he’s serious about that, which is borderline insanity and wouldn’t fly with any state athletic commission.
• On the same topic, the reaction Rooney, Jr. got underscores the importance of booking local talent in a market like this. The Albany area unfortunately isn’t big enough to warrant sports for the sake of sports. Also, boxing is a personality driven business. To get people into the house, they need to have some investment. The most sure-fire way to get that is with local brand name fighters. As charismatic as headliner Joe Hanks is, the crowd didn’t care nearly as much for him as it did the local boys on the undercard.
• The judging was consistent, which is refreshing given how wild it can be (see, MMA fans? It ain’t just us). The only score that struck me as a bit wonky was in the semi-main where one judge scored it 98-91 for Usarov. There’s no way Barthelemy lost that many rounds; in fact, it was close enough where I actually had it scored 96-93 for Barthelemy, but it was so close and I was distracted enough by the shenanigans behind me that I couldn’t fault them for going the other way.
• The Escalera/Brooks fight probably should have been stopped sooner than it was. Realistically, Brooks was out of the running as soon as the second round started. He showed a lot of heart and an iron chin, but that really could have been ended a round sooner. It’s one of the things I point to when boxing fans view MMA as barbaric: if this had been, say, an MMA bout, it would have been stopped the first time Brooks went down. Which is why, among other reasons, I think MMA is actually the safer sport of the two. It’s a different context, of course, but food for thought in the discussion of long-term damage to combat sports practitioners.
• As mentioned in the article at the Knick Ledger, Ray J was in the house. Swear to God. I immediately thought of my buddy Brian, as we use “oh for the love of Ray J” as a means of conveying exasperation.
• Usarov/Barthelemy, despite the fans’ apprehension towards it, was a really great and evenly matched bout. More on their reaction later, because it ties into another rant I have to reaction of Nick Diaz’s loss last night to Carlos Condit at UFC 143 and the expectations fans have of combat sports.

I’ll be covering the event for the Knick Ledger, so keep an eye there and follow @KevinMarshall for live tweets.

From the official site:

Event Details

Boxing returns to the Times Union Center for the 1st time in nearly 15 years!

 

IBA WORLD TITLE BOUT

Heavyweights—Ten Rounds

Joe “The Future” Hanks, 18-0 (12KO’s) vs. Rafael Pedro, 21-9-1 (15KO’s)

WBO INTERCONTINENTAL WORLD TITLE BOUT    

Bantamweights—Ten Rounds

Sahib Usarov, 17-0 (6KO’s) vs. Yan Barthelemy, 12-2 (4KO’s)

Super Middleweights—Eight Rounds

Jason Escalera, 12-0 (11KO’s) vs. Marcus Brooks, 7-8 (3KO’s)

Junior Welterweights—Six Rounds

Darnell Jiles, 8-2-1 (3KO’s) vs. Bryan Abraham, 5-10-2 (5KO’s)

Junior Middleweights—Four Rounds

Kevin Rooney Jr, 2-1 (1KO) vs. Stanley Harvey, 1-1 (1KO)

Other matches are still being determined. Card subject to change.