Flying fists new entree at The Gates

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A bloodied but unbowed Roland Vandal stares down opponent Patrick Cape Thursday night at Fight Night at the Gates. (PHIL.HOSSACK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA )

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Nobody's paying attention to their plate as Vandal (left) and Cape go toe-to-toe in the restaurant setting. (PHIL.HOSSACK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA)

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A judge waits for the action in the ring to start while 'ring girls' entertain a fan between rounds. (PHIL.HOSSACK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA)

Cigars, of course. Booze too. A bevy of scantily clad women, some even with their original equipment. And there was blood, lots and lots of blood.

So yeah, it was a night of boxing. And yet it was boxing like we've never really seen in this town before as the sweet science met fine dining at The Gates restaurant on Roblin Boulevard Thursday night.

It was a bold experiment -- would Winnipeggers pay $200 a plate to eat first-class food and watch second-class boxing.

The answer was served up even before the prime rib hit the plate and Wisconsin's James Wayka hit the mat. "We'll definitely be doing this again," Gates owner Don Carson said as he surveyed a banquet hall that usually holds weddings and bar mitzvahs but on this night had a boxing ring plunked in the middle of it and 300 fight fans seated amidst white table cloths.

"We've already got plans to hold another one in the fall. We've got a concept here that people are willing to pay for. We're hoping to make this the place to be, the kind of thing where we're sold out even before we announce it."

Good start.

Promoter 'King' John Vernaus came up just 50 short of a sellout for an event that had almost no pre-event publicity or advertising.

He did it by filling the place with the deeper pockets of the small but devoted group of fight fans who have kept professional boxing alive in this city, against long odds. People like restaurateur Joe Loschiavo, a loyal customer at the arena-style boxing events Vernaus used to put on at the Convention Centre who plunked down much bigger money last night out of what almost sounds like civic pride.

"You always hear people complaining about 'what's there to do in Winnipeg?'

"Wow this is a great event right here. I'm happy we have something like this available in Winnipeg."

And the quality of the boxing? "Look," said Loschiavo, "people want to see knockouts. And they will see knockouts tonight I'm sure. Are people going to put up with duds? No. But I'm sure the boxing will get better as they do more of these things."

With a boxing convention in town this week, the crowd was full of former fighters and boxing officials from all over Canada and the United States.

TSN Boxing analyst Russ Amber -- regarded as the best corner man in Canada -- was among them. And he said Winnipeg is just one of four cities in Canada still regularly staging professional boxing, joined only by Vancouver, Montreal and Edmonton. "It's not easy putting these things on, said Amber. "The competition is murder."

So why does Winnipeg still work? A big reason is it's a city with a boxing tradition that goes long and deep and where fight fans still shiver at the memory of the night Winnipeg made it to 'The Show' when local boy Donny (Golden Boy) Lalonde took on Sugar Ray Leonard for a title in Las Vegas.

Now, to be sure, there were some first-night glitches. An electrical short knocked the lights out a couple of times before the fights began. And one fight almost never happened at all, when the border guys turned back David Laque of Minneapolis, who was scheduled to fight local boy Roland Vandal.

"You know how it is with these fighter guys," Vernaus explained to the crowd, "The odd one has a criminal record and all that."

Laque was replaced at the last moment by Patrick Cape, also of Minneapolis. Cape first gave the crowd what they wanted -- opening up a substantial gash on Vandal's forehead in the second round -- before giving them what they didn't want -- beating the local hope on points.

(The crowd was even angrier after the second fight, which saw Winnipegger Matt Gembey knock Wayka down twice in the final round yet have to settle for a majority draw.)

Vandal didn't seem to mind his loss as much as the crowd. Fighting in a province where the minimum pay scale for the pros is $100 per round, Vandal -- who does a lot of work with troubled kids -- was smiling through the blood caked on his face as he worked his way through the crowd on the way to his dressing room.

"That," Vandal beamed, "was fun.

It was hard to argue.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 10, 2009 C4