Okay enough dallying. We’re back to regular programming.
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About a month ago on a Friday night (at least I think it was), a couple of my more adventurous friends and I decided to visit Ringside. We always see it when driving down Kalayaan Ave and have been curious about what it’s like inside. The outside is always brightly lit and the atmosphere always feels festive. There’s a big sign outside announcing a fight between Ms. So-and-So and Ms. So-and-So. Possibly due to its relative newness, it doesn’t seem as run down and fatigued like several of the girly bars in the area. Although I haven’t been to the others yet, I know enough of them through friends’ tales, plus I’m a bit of a regular at Ziggurat. I recommend the moussaka and lots of honey beer and hookah. They have really nice tea as well.
If you haven’t guessed yet, Ringside is a girly bar that caters mostly to white tourists and traveling businessmen. I read somewhere that most bars in P. Burgos prefer not to entertain Filipinos and Filipino-looking patrons because they’re always afraid a panty raid’s going down later in the evening. Clever clever.
The main gimmick that this bar boasts is the fact that they hold nightly “fights”. Indeed, this is what made us so curious in the first place. We knew things wouldn’t pick up till late in the evening and that food and drink prices would be exhorbitant so we whiled a few hours away at the nearby Grilla restaurant.
We decided to move around midnight. We walked the few meters down to the bar, all giddy and nervous. Once outside we lingered hesitantly but eventually one of us moved to enter but the bouncer stopped her, explaining that we needed to have a male companion with us, otherwise he couldn’t let us in. Not even talking to Bigshot Lady (I’m guessing she was the mamasan?) helped. We went from being incredulous to somewhat incensed as we stood outside awkwardly for a good 10 minutes. I felt strangely cheap. One of our friends took that cue and begged off, muttering some excuse about running an errand.
We had planned our girly bar evening at least a week in advance and were determined not to give up. We conferred briefly and decided to talk to anyone male walking on the bar’s premises. Bless my shameless friend who took it upon herself to accost a man approaching our corner from across the street. He was balding, white and pot-bellied. He was perfect. We descended upon him like flies, explaining our plight and promising to buy him a drink if he just walked with us into the club. He seemed hesitant and almost afraid, but eventually he agreed. We whooped in delight and paraded him in front of the bouncer who ushered us in without a word.
Once inside, our hero stood still, took one look at the place, made a grimace and quite possibly murmured, “Uh, no” then legged it out of there. We hollered thankyous at his retreating figure. Woohoo we were in!
The interior is a lot smaller than I’d expected. It’s dark and smoky. There’s a bar on the right and little cocktail tables form around a smallish boxing ring. There’s even a bell for when they announce the start of a fight. There were about 3 or 4 girls dancing in the ring, I don’t remember if they were wearing gloves or not. But they were friendly. There’s a dj booth on one side of the room, by the corridor leading to the toilets. He was playing loud music (not bad actually) that was blasting from speakers mounted on the wall and ceiling. We got ourselves a table, ordered drinks which were pricey at Php300+ each (but they were strong) and waited. There were sleazy men hanging about but there were lots more girls who were just sitting and chatting with each other.
Nothing exciting happened. We were doing our best not to get impatient but it was taking ages for the show to start. In the meantime, we drank our drinks and chatted with the girls, who seemed friendly and nice. One of our friends even got invited to join them in the ring to dance, which she gladly accepted.
We left a bit past 2 am without seeing any punches thrown. Ah well, it was enough to satisfy our curiousity about the place.
Ringside is in Makati City, in the P. Burgos area and is located on Kalayaan Ave, perpendicular to Makati Ave.
