It was shortly after 9 p.m. this past June 20 when more than 100 relatives, friends, and members of the street gang Latin Syndicate filed into Bad Dog Fight Club, aka The Kennel, to witness some of their boys duke it out inside a chainlink-enclosed fighting ring.
Most of them paid the $20 cover to get in, while some plunked down $50 each for a front row VIP seat. And they could have cared less that there was no air conditioning or fans to cool down the massive amount of body heat being generated inside the Kennel.
The sauna effect seemed to enhance the already hyper-aggressive tension in the crowd. Whenever the sound system blared tracks by K.A.R. South Mafia artists, some of whom are ex-Syndicate members, the spectators would throw up their beloved gang sign. It was like waiting for a powder keg of violence to explode.
The event featured five fights headlined by a ferocious street brawler and former LS member who -- like Kimbo Slice -- has become a YouTube phenom. His name is Rene
Martinez, but on the streets and on the Internet, he's Level. That's his Going-To-War name, which he earned for knocking out his opponents with
bloody ease. Alas, he didn't get a chance to level anyone. His challenger backed out at the last minute.
Still, there was plenty of ghetto-style entertainment to keep me there
despite the fact that I was completely soaked in
sweat, my T-shirt sticking to my body like Spiderman's black symbiote
costume. I saw three fools get knocked out, including a roided out
Latin Syndicate behemoth who got dropped by a much smaller opponent.
That pissed off the predominantly pro-1219 crowd (those numbers
represent the letters L and S). Angry gangbangers tore down the
chainlink and hollered at the man who knocked out their homeboy. I captured some video footage on my mobile phone. Check it out below:
