It’s Where Top Hats Mingle With Not-So-Golden Gloves

The cars are lined up 15-deep outside the Irvine Marriott. A yellow Porsche behind a white Rolls-Royce behind a bright red Mercedes convertible behind a dark green pickup truck with Mexico plates.

It is two hours before the Battle in the Ballroom. Yuppie boxing this has been called, a gathering of well-dressed doctors and lawyers and business owners from Newport Beach and Irvine and Laguna Niguel, but also construction workers from Pomona and restaurant workers from East L.A.

For 14 years, promoter Roy Englebrecht and matchmaker Jerry Bilderrain, a well-tanned 72-year-old ex-Navy man from Santa Monica, have put on a cozy contradiction, an upscale boxing event, held seven times a year, in a place where the carpeting is clean, the chandeliers twinkle and where some spectators hold up umbrellas to keep clear of the flying snot, sweat and blood.

Two hours before the seven-bout card, many of the 400 season-ticket holders have walked across the street to enjoy their free buffet of fresh fruit, fresh fajitas and fresh creme brulee at the KO Club. The talk is of the stock market, the Ken Starr report, of a vacation to Paris next week and whether to lease or buy a new Land Rover.

In the hallway outside the ballroom, where there is a temporary ring, with 1,400 chairs placed close enough to not only smell the sweat but feel it, the Cardenas family is standing.

Oscar Cardenas, who just turned 20, will be fighting Memo Moreno, a seasoned professional from the Coachella Boxing Club, in a four-round super-featherweight bout. This will be Cardenas’ first professional fight and already, more than two hours before he actually climbs into the ring, Cardenas is sweating and brushing nervously at his hair.

There are seven relatives surrounding Cardenas. The family is originally from Guadalajara, Mexico, and is the proud owner of a restaurant named after Mom. Emilia’s is at the corner of Vernon and Washington in Los Angeles, and everybody but Oscar is wearing a shirt that advertises the restaurant. Even has the phone number on it, the shirt does, and when a man holding a cell phone in one hand and the keys to a Porsche in the other says to a friend that Emilia’s sounds like a place to visit, Juan Cardenas, Oscar’s brother, smiles widely.

“Good advertisement,” Juan says, nodding toward the shirt. Then, nodding toward his brother says, “Very nervous. Very nervous.”

Englebrecht, who lives in Newport Beach, decided to try promoting “upscale boxing,” as he calls it, in 1985. This was mostly a whim, Englebrecht acknowledges, but he contracted with the Irvine Marriott, rounded up some fighters and put on the first show.

“I announced a no-name card, charged $15 a ticket and didn’t know if anybody would show up,” he says. “We sold out and turned 300 away.”

His theory, Englebrecht explains, is that there is a very limited number of boxing fans anywhere. In Orange County, that number is about 1,400. The tickets cost $25 and $35 now, and there are never any empty seats. These fans don’t care if they’ve maybe never heard of the fighters. They care, though, about seeing good, competitive, slug-it-out fights and they care about the environment, care that they can have their cars valet-parked, that they can bring their wives or children, care that the venue is clean and fancy.

This formula works. Dave Arneson of Foothill Ranch, Chris Ward of Rancho Santa Margarita, Mike Cummings of Las Flores and Gary McCullough of Downey are happily seated in the second row and they have collected their sons, 10-, 11-, 12-year-olds, next to them.

“This is a nice event, quality conditions, nice fights,” says Arneson, who, with Ward, works for a data company. And the sons? “We like the ring card girls,” they say.

The advertising banners around the ballroom are testament to the class of fans. “The House of Imports, Buena Park,” asks you to buy a Mercedes. “Ocean’s Eleven Casino in San Diego,” asks you to part with your money. On a table next to the one selling T-shirts is one with brochures for the Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine, or Practical Accountant.

To the fighters, this means nothing. They are fighting, most of them, for 100 bucks a round. When Derek Berry and Tex Miles whale at each other for six rounds, when Miles purposely blows his bleeding nose onto Berry and the spray hits a suit and the man in the suit howls in disgust, this makes no impression on the two gladiators in the ring.

Cardenas, by the way, loses a unanimous decision, but he acquits himself well.

“Nice job for a first fight,” Bilderrain says.

The Cardenases walk out slowly, making sure that everyone in the ballroom can read the name of the restaurant. Plus the phone number.

For yuppie boxing fans must eat.