Kristof Arasim
Traders like to say that life on the Street is a fight from the moment the bell sounds each morning. But how many of them will swap their French cuffs for a pair of 16-ounce gloves and put their well-exfoliated faces in front of a stiff jab?
At least a dozen, it turns out, as, on a recent April evening, the Brawl on Bay Street VI descended on the Arcadian Court ballroom in downtown Toronto. The biannual gala pits banker against broker, analyst against adviser. Four hundred colleagues, friends and family have each shelled out $200 to dine on rubber chicken, clink highballs and place friendly wagers on which of the 12 fighters will arrive at the office with a fresh shiner.
Among the contenders: National Bank Financial's Sadok (the Tenderizer) Ben-Khelifa; TD Waterhouse's Andy (the Gun Show) Kim; Melanie (Whiplash) Whitmore, a makeup artist and one of only two outsiders; and RBC's Joanna (Dangerous) Simon. The two women fought last year; tonight, Dangerous is looking for revenge. She'll get it.
The promoter of the event, Mario Lechowski, is a former pro boxer who has been organizing white-collar bouts since 2006. His first card featured mostly criminal lawyers, but he's found it easier to work with bankers: "They're a bit looser with money-and they have bigger egos." Lechowski makes a small profit on the events, and donates a portion of the proceeds to charity. He generally spends about three months training his combatants in the sweet science. He nags them to lose weight, harangues them to run and build up stamina, and gives them hell when they show up at the gym hung over.
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For National Bank's Jamie (the Cornwall Kid) Landon, defeat wasn't an option. "We work in a high testosterone environment," he said before his bout. "The ribbing I'll take if I lose-let alone really get beat-is not something I want to envision."
The bell rang for the first round. At the back of the room, someone blasted an air horn, angering officials from the Ontario Boxing Association, which sanctioned the event. Inside the ring, the desk jockeys moved in and out, throwing jabs-arms and legs occasionally getting tangled. The exchanges were mostly clean, until Bruno Colozza (a local entrepreneur) and Sean Mooney (Barclays Capital) engaged in a chippy match; the ref finally took a point from Colozza after he threw his opponent to the canvas. But the evening's heaviest blow fell later, when one burly fighter walked into a perfect punch that laid him out cold. "If somebody gets dropped, I'm cool with that because it's a fight," Lechowski says. "Black eyes and bloody noses are part of the game."