After the underground fight club “Rumble in the Bronx” was raided by the cops during a packed warehouse event in November, did the organizers decided to head south and try their luck here in Orlando?
As first reported by the Daily Beast, it appears that the fight club did just that.
Rumble in the Bronx is a fight event intended to work out beefs and rivalries through boxing-style fights instead of guns, with a mission statement on Instagram of “RESPECTFULLY GUNS DOWN GLOVES UP.” Ten organizers of the November NYC warehouse event were arrested and fined on charges of “health and alcohol violations, unlawful assembly, and participating in a prohibited combative sport.”
With the legal heat on in New York, it would make sense to move on to other cities, especially a state with such weak COVID-19 safety restrictions and guidelines.
According to the Beast, Exhibit A is the public instagram account “Rumble in Orlando,” which bears more than a passing resemblance to that of Rumble in the Bronx‘s IG, with similar branding, followers, logos, and some repeated content and linkage between the two. The first post on this account is a picture of the I-4 Eyesore with the caption “We are now in Orlando.”
The Rumble in Orlando Instagram promoted an Orlando fight event held on Dec. 5 at a secret location.
Videos were subsequently posted on the page that showed a crowd of maskless attendees packed tight in cramped quarters, watching fighters go at it.
Rumble in the Bronx CEO Michael Roman has dodged interview requests from the Daily Beast and Gothamist about both the status of Rumble in the Bronx and Rumble in Orlando.
Local authorities didn’t have much to say about it either. Reporters from the Daily Beast reached out to Orlando and Orange County law enforcement and both denied any knowledge of the event. Mayor Buddy Dyer’s office gave the noncommittal comment that the Mayor encourages “residents, visitors and businesses to practice pandemic precautions, including guidelines from local, state, and federal governments, and the CDC.”
As of this writing there aren’t any future events scheduled in the near future … at least, none announced on the Instagram page.
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This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2020.