{"id":25094,"date":"2011-02-26T10:05:47","date_gmt":"2011-02-26T10:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.tehelka.com\/?p=25094"},"modified":"2011-02-26T10:05:47","modified_gmt":"2011-02-26T10:05:47","slug":"the-bloodbath-mumbai-loves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/the-bloodbath-mumbai-loves\/","title":{"rendered":"The bloodbath Mumbai loves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aastha Atray Banan<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0visits the city\u2019s latest fight club<\/em>
\n

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Photos: MS Gopal<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nTHE SMOKING AREA\u00a0<\/strong>outside Studio No 9 of Famous Studios in Mumbai was rife with strange conversations. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t he just finish him off?\u201d, \u201cOh, I felt sorry for the bloke who was bleeding\u201d, \u201cThe girl with the plaque cards was hot!\u201d, \u201cNo, she could have been way hotter.\u201d
\nBehind the doors, though, there was no scope for conversation. Loud pumping music and a crowd that was going \u201coooohhhh\u201d, \u201cyes, yes, yes\u201d along with sounds of some groans and \u201cewws\u201d gave one a feeling that something out of the ordinary was going on.
\nAnd no, there wasn\u2019t a porn movie on! Instead, there were two fighters pounding each other in a ring surrounded by 400 Mumbaikars who could have looked more at home in any of the city\u2019s expensive clubs, or at the Canadian rock singer Bryan Adams concert just a few kilometres away.
\nBut instead they were here, at the Full Contact Championships, organised by Prashant Kumar, the co-founder of Full Contact Entertainment Private Limited. An adman by profession but a mixed martial arts (MMA) exponent for 20 years now, Kumar believes such fight nights will change the way Mumbai sees entertainment.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s such a common thing in the United States. But in India, even MMA is still a fledgling sport. I bring fighters from all over India \u2014 from places such as Sangli or Haryana. Here, they are pitted against fighters who are trained in something completely different from them. So a judo expert will fight a kickboxing expert. They get recognition, they get money \u2014 it\u2019s a win-win situation,\u201d says Kumar.
\nHe is also quick to point out that the freestyle form is far safer than even boxing. \u201cMore people die during boxing. There have been no deaths due to MMA. And I think such events just give these fighters more hope that they can make it. Look at how the crowd reacts.\u201d
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Lords of the Ring<\/strong> The crowd had families, couples, kids and young people applauding every bit of the gruesome fight<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThe well-dressed, well-heeled crowd did seem to be getting the hang of it \u2014 thanks to the food counter, the DJ who just would not give up, the freedom to bring your own booze, and then the freedom to boo or cheer your favourite guy in the ring.
\nInside the ring, the action was not limited to the fighting \u2014 there was a miniskirt-wearing blonde who walked out with plaques signalling rounds 1, 2 and 3, and a mad hatter MC who kept the madness going with some funny and some seriously unfunny one-liners.
\nTwenty-seven-year-old Ratan Ginwalla, who heads an advertising agency in Juhu, had come to the event with a bunch of colleagues and was surprised at the \u2018underground\u2019 feel. \u201cI have seen professional fights in Vegas and to have it in Mumbai is simply out of the world. The first few rounds were a bit thanda (dull), as I think the fighters were not getting too violent. But when the bloodbath began, it was fun. The men were going \u201ckill him, kill him\u201d and the women cringing. I would give up a night at a club any Saturday for this.\u201d
\nWe do not know which women Ginwalla was looking at because not all of them were cringing. Shalu Wadhwa, who works for the event management company Wizcraft, says, \u201cI got some booze and it was rocking!\u201d
\nWadhwa had been unsure about attending what she described as \u201ca guy thing\u201d. But once she got here, she lost herself in the action. \u201cThe crowd was so good. And the blood didn\u2019t turn me off. Don\u2019t we see worse on television? It\u2019s such an alternate entertainment experience. Mumbai needs it. My only grudge? Why don\u2019t the fighters look like Brad Pitt or Edward Norton?\u201d
\nTHE FIGHTERS\u00a0<\/strong>may not have even seen Fight Club \u2014 the movie Wadhwa is referring to Aslam Nabilal Nadaf, 23, is one of the fighters. He is a BCom student from Sangli, and he assures us he is just doing it for the rush. \u201cIt\u2019s so different, and the audience makes it electric. Maza aata hai (I have fun),\u201d he says just before stepping into the ring. But Aslam didn\u2019t get to feel the rush for too long. His shoulder got dislocated in the first five minutes and he tapped out of the bout.
\nBusinessman Nirav Shah who got his 11-year-old son to the fight was glad for all the drama. \u201cThat\u2019s what makes it fun. It\u2019s a sport as well and it\u2019s great to encourage it. I was not sure my son would like it, but now he wants to bring all his friends along next time. And it\u2019s not bad for him \u2014 kids today know everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shalu Wadhwa had been unsure about attending what she described as a guy thing. But once she got there, she lost herself in the action<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was a unique night. A crowd that included families, couples, kids and a smattering of expats, all got together to drink, eat and enjoy watching a sport that many would consider brutal.
\nWas it a hit just because Mumbaikars are starved of live events that excite the senses, or does an event like this feed the sadistic sides of our personalities?
\nPrivate investor Tarbir Shahpuri, 28, does not care why but is just glad he was there. \u201cIt\u2019s not about the fights, it\u2019s about the experience of feeling like you are doing something different. Thanks to the 500 entry, the people you did it with were also sophisticated,\u201d he grins, adding, \u201cBut most of all, it was an intense event. And god knows, Mumbai needs the intensity.\u201d
\naastha@tehelka.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aastha Atray Banan visits the city\u2019s latest fight club<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[5725,5967,5968,5969,5970,5971,5972,71,5973,5974,5975,5959],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}