Let’s start with Gotham Girls. The bouts were held in a Community College of New York’s (CCNY) Nat Holman Gym. Old wooden retractable gym bleachers, intimate setting with maybe a thousand people (maybe more – Wikipedia says their largest home crowd was 1,500 people) We sat in VIP seats, which were also know as suicide seats. But, they weren’t kidding. If I stuck my leg out, I was crossing the line that marked in and out of bounds. Seriously, like 2 feet away. We got hit a few times. All in all a good time.
Naptown, however, was much larger. The Pepsi Colosseum houses minor league hockey most of the time. There were between 4,000 and 5,000 people there. It was still general admission, but it was much more like attending a pro sporting event than an underground awesome thing. There were $4 corn dogs and $7 beers (although, it was local beer. Bud was $5). The PA announcers were exceptionally obnoxious and loud — my ears were hurting by the end of the first bout simply from the PA system. With so many people, you were much further away from the action. And, even the people who decided to sit in the “suicide seats” — sitting on the floor around the outside edges, were a good 6-10 feet away from the boundary line.
We definitely had a good time at both. But, I’d venture to say the atmosphere of the Gotham Girls event won hands down.
Anyway, a couple of snaps from tonight: