BY JERRY CORNFIELD

The crowd thirsted for blood, demanding satisfaction of this carnal desire with demonic fervor. And Kevin Hua did not disappoint. He snapped a left jab, crunching Alex Griswold on the bridge of his nose. Hua followed with a less powerful but still damaging right cross to Griswold’s left cheek. As Hua paused, admiring his work, blood oozed from Griswold’s nostril, igniting a menacing roar of approval from nearly all the 2,700 souls inside UCSB’s Robertson Gym.    

And this was just the first round of the first match of the Ninth Annual Fight Night last Friday, an evening of boxing that was a benefit for the Say Yes to Kids Foundation, the financial arm of the Primo Boxing Club in Santa Barbara. Organized by the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity at UCSB, this year’s event raised $7,000 for Primo, whose owners Joe and Jean Pommier mentor dozens of streetwise youths in the sport of boxing and the realities of life.

This was an unusual fund-raiser. There were no speeches, no auctions, no pitches. This was unadulterated entertainment for a crowd of college students, mostly men, who forked out $8 to sit ringside or $5 to squeeze onto the bleachers of Rob Gym, an aging and docile facility, and scream their lungs out at each person who donned headgear, laced up gloves, and stepped through the ropes onto the canvas of the ring. A few came inebriated, most only revved up by adrenaline, savagely hoping to see someone get whupped this night. That’s typical, said a tuxedoed Frank DeBernardo, a UCSB and Pi Kappa Alpha alum who has served as ring announcer for five years. “There’s been knockdowns and knockouts and that’s what they come for.”  [more]