Hitting below the belt

It’s the combinations that get you at Ringside Bar, which, as far as I know, is the only Manila establishment offering both midget boxing and lady boxing on any given night.

The combinations break down like this: first there’s midgets boxing in the ring; then there’s ladies dancing in the ring; then there’s ladies boxing in the ring; then there’s midgets dancing in the ring; then there’s lady midgets boxing in the ring; and then… well, you can finish the sequence on your own.

The combinations are not exactly masterful, like a Manny Pacquiao-orchestrated takedown in the sixth round; no, they’re more like the random jiggling of a three-digit combo lock on someone’s thievable Schwinn bike. They’re tacky, yet somehow inevitable.

Each round of debauched entertainment is introduced by an announcer’s bellowing voice, like a Filipino approximation of Michael Buffer: “Ladies and genneelllmen… are you reeeady for baaaxing?”

Ringside is packed most weeknights in Makati City. “Packed” is not hard to achieve, because the bar is rather tiny inside. It’s become a hangout of sorts for expats seeking the road less traveled, and it sits not a block from P. Burgos, with its usual squadron of trannies, strip clubs, massage girls and guys selling boxes of fake Viagra at every corner. Dan Brown — that parachute hack — might find things worth writing about here.

Ringside is also located not more than a click away from Rockwell — its posh, landscaped environment offering the counter-illusion that such sleaziness doesn’t exist anywhere in the world, let alone in nearby Makati! (Rockwellians live under Stephen King’s Dome, in some ways.)

Despite the pre-hype you’ve ingested through word of mouth or YouTube videos, Ringside Bar manages somehow to be even tackier in real life than you ever dreamed it would be. You enter by parting a black curtain (that feels like it belongs in a Tarantino drug den), and are immediately bathed in its downmarket ambiance — from the obnoxiously loud heavy metal music to the patterns of disco stars overhead constantly rotating and glittering across every surface — and that’s before you even get your bearings.

The thing is, when you enter Ringside the first time, you kind of want to lay low. But this is basically impossible because the scale of the place is literally such that you are highly visible from any angle. The boxing ring itself occupies a third of the real estate — it’s close to the ground, naturally, and lies at the center of the proceedings. So you creep along the bar to your left, or slide along to your right to seek an alcove set far back from the disco lights. (The lighting back there reminds you of the final scene in Taxi Driver.)

If you are lucky, you will find a back wall to stand against while nursing your beer (which, at P180, is not cheap; though the drinks you will be coaxed to purchase the bar girls all night long are much pricier). My post was near the “merch” case, which contained Ringside caps, T-shirts, keychains and the like for sale. (I contented myself with a free Ringside beer coaster, though I do admire their marketing moxie.) In front of our table was a steel pole with a little platform, which the occasional girl would swing herself around in a desultory manner. (As if to say, “Hey, this is a midget boxing bar, don’t get too worked up; pole-dancing is down the street.”)

Naturally, a G.R.O. approached our group fast, containing as it did two Caucasians (the other Caucasian remarking that he often feels, when walking down Manila’s streets, “like a stack of US dollars” being closely inspected and counted by every passing eye). I want to tell him that this feeling goes away for foreigners, and indeed it does; after a while strangers add you up quicker, and move on.

The G.R.O. was interested in our entertainment needs for the night, but we assured her a round of beers would suffice; we were there to watch the ring action. Yet sadly, the matches at Ringside are only a kind of sideshow. The actual bouts last about three minutes. Then there are lengthy lulls to ponder how people actually make a living here. The girls can’t really dance or box very well. Their dancing choreography in the ring was pedestrian, especially compared with the male midget boxers, who at least got into the spirit of the thing. (Another curiosity: the girls wear non-matching footwear. Some are in heels, others are in trainers, etc. It’s disconcerting somehow, like you’re watching some random aerobics class.)

Of course, the girls have other objectives than dancing in mind, winding themselves around various patrons and urging each to buy them a drink. Other forms of urging take place: after a midget boxing match ended, the two combatants kind of moved around the club, asking patrons if they enjoyed the fight — passing the hat, as it were, and scraping for tips. Somehow, this open begging seemed beneath them (pardon the pun): they’re supposed to be the main entertainment, after all. Let management provide their commissions and tips.

As mentioned, the place is pretty packed, so there is money being made at Ringside. There might even be some side betting. Camera and cell phone documentation is not only tolerated, it’s encouraged — all the better to spread the word on YouTube.

And just what is that word? “Sad,” our Caucasian friend pronounced. Yes, it is sad. And exploitative. And sleazy beyond even my powers of description. But entering a place like Ringside, you have to figure out a way to take a sad song and make it better. I mean, you came in here to watch midgets boxing. What did you expect? You chose this, so own it. From another perspective, the little people who work here — along with places like Hobbit House — are just making an honest living. They’re hustling, just like anybody else in the music or entertainment world here, which always has room for one more to try and scrape by. To be honest, the little people working Ringside don’t seem particularly exploited; they seem to be in on the joke. And it’s obvious their boxing skills are more for show than to seriously damage one another. (But who really knows what kind of private beefs exist in the world of midget boxing? I don’t.)

So your reaction to Ringside largely depends on your mood, and your predilection either for optimism or pessimism. You just have to ask yourself, once you settle in beyond the black curtain: Is the glass of sleaze half empty, or half full?