A great meal, a fine wine, a bit of blood

SARAH KEARNEY / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES Enlarge Image 

Promoter John Vernaus says two-thirds of the 45 tables for his dinner-and-boxing night at The Gates are sold at $200 a plate.

Hors d'oeuvres will be served promptly at six, along with a selection of fine wines. Dinner will be a choice of salmon or prime rib. Cigars will follow.

And for dessert? Well, how about a cerebral hemorrhage or two.

Local boxing promoter "King" John Vernaus is putting on a fight card at the upscale restaurant, The Gates on Roblin, next Thursday that promises to be a unique combination of fine dining and bar brawling -- an evening Vernaus says will satisfy the most discriminating palate and undiscriminating blood lust in one jus-stained boys' night out.

It will be boxing meets dinner theatre, says Vernaus, with an emphasis on the theatrics during an evening that sounds like it will be more fighting than actual boxing.

"I'm just really trying to do something different here," he said. "It's not going to be a big event, but it's going to be a good event. People are going to enjoy it."

If you're looking for Frazier-Ali, you're looking in the wrong place. But if you just want to eat a great meal, then watch two men beat the hell out of each other, this one's for you.

One fighter Vernaus has lined up for the evening, Jamaican Anthony Osborne, is a middleweight with a fight record that sounds more like a convenience store.

"His record is 7-14 or 7-20, something like that," Vernaus says. And then, ever the promoter, Vernaus adds: "But he's a strong guy. He's just been in tough all these times."

For the record, Osborne is actually 7-29-1. The good news for fight fans is he's tougher to knock out than Homer Simpson and almost always goes the distance.

Osborne will take on one of Vernaus' own fighters, Kitchener's Mike Walchuk (8-1) in a six-rounder.

Two welterweight fights will see Winnipeg's Roland Vandal take on David Laque of Minneapolis (four rounds) and Winnipeg's Matt Gemby fight Wisconsin's James Waka (six rounds).

Vernaus says the Vandal-Laque scrap won't be a case study in the sweet science, but should appeal to the same kind of crowd who goes to NASCAR to see the crashes. "There's no defence there," Vernaus says. "You'll see rock 'em, sock 'em, robo-action in that one."

He promises he'll also have at least one more fight lined up -- maybe even for a belt -- by the time the hors d'oeuvres are being trayed next Thursday.

If that sounds a bit last-minute, it isn't scaring away local fight fans. Vernaus says about two-thirds of the 45 tables he'll have set up in a banquet hall at The Gates next Thursday have already been sold at $200 a plate. And that's without almost any advertising. "Three hundred and sixty is a sellout," he says, "and I think it will sell out.

"It's a good concept. The boxing fans in Winnipeg are older business people and they'll pay to see something like this."

It's the first time in 12 years someone has tried to organize an upscale boxing event in Winnipeg, Vernaus says. He says he was also the promoter the last time, a 1997 card he organized in a ballroom at Fort Garry Place in which, like everyone else that spring, he took a bath.

"That was the year of the flood. I remember the water kept coming up and we were seriously worried the hotel might actually be under water. All kinds of people pulled out. I lost money on that one."

He learned his lesson and moved on to stage much larger, but also more downscale, fight nights at the Winnipeg Convention Centre for the past decade.

But with a couple of promoters in town now organizing similar kinds of cards for mixed martial arts, Vernaus said it was time to rethink his approach. He said similar kinds of fight nights have been held in recent years at Toronto's upscale Royal York Hotel and have been tremendous financial successes at $1,000 a plate.

Like those events, Vernaus said his night will have a charitable component, with some proceeds going to amateur boxing in the province.

He promises there will be a veritable who's who of Canadian boxing in attendance. The Manitoba Boxing Commission is hosting a national conference in Winnipeg next week and Vernaus said many of the delegates will be in attendance, including TSN boxing analyst Russ Anber, who will serve as MC for part of the evening.

Tickets for the event are available by calling Vernaus at his Higgins Avenue body shop at 982-4540.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 3, 2009 C4