Steven Berkoff

‘Kill him, Jimmy!’ A night at the cage fight

So we went to Wembley Arena to witness for the first time what is called ‘cage fighting’.

So we went to Wembley Arena to witness for the first time what is called ‘cage fighting’.

So we went to Wembley Arena to witness for the first time what is called ‘cage fighting’. The reason for this being, of course, that the combatants go to war in a rather large cage. The cage is bound in with a net of the kind of wire you might use for a chicken coop. There are no seats for the weary gladiators to rest on between their violent bouts, and so they stand or lean against the wire. Their seconds come into the cage through an opening in one of the sides and check them out or wave a towel to attempt to cool them down between rounds. The first thing you notice as you approach Wembley are the spectators, mostly youngish men but quite a few punchy and tattooed middle-agers and a few ‘birds’. Birds cackle and squawk.

So they turned up just before the fight started, scheduled from 6 p.m. onwards, full of that blokish, shouty enthusiasm, poking gestures, yelps and shouts to mates, underdressed, just in T-shirts, blazoned in tattoos, clutching Coke cans, puffing on snouts and quite buoyed up, larfin’ their heads off at nothing in particular, and occasionally a serious muscle-wrapped beast would stroll by with his bird, well pumped-up with arms entwined with tattooed snakes.

We then decided to at least take our seats and breathe in the atmosphere before the match. We threaded through the corridors which sold nothing apart from booze and hotdogs at high prices and then entered the arena. The last time I was here was to see the famous Viennese riding school, which was indeed astonishing. We found our ‘comped’ seats, graciously arranged by my mate Dave Legeno, who was down to battle halfway through the evening.

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