Introducing, from the red corner ... a Wharton MBA?
On Saturday night at the Class of 1923 Ice Rink, 2,000 spectators “hurrah’ed” and raged on at the 11th annual Wharton vs. Penn Law Fight Night. During Fight Night, known for being the largest graduate student event at Penn every year, Wharton MBAs and Penn Law students box against one another. The Boxing Club of Wharton and the Boxing Club of Penn Law co-hosted this event to donate all of their profits to benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Philadelphia.
The event brought in a line of judges including lawyer and former professional boxer Jacqueline Frazier, Wharton Vice Dean of Student Life Kembrel Jones and Danny Davis, trainer at the Joe Hand Boxing Gym. The panel used their expertise to determine the victors of each round.
The majority of the boxers consisted of graduate students from Wharton and Penn Law, with one boxer from the School of Nursing and two from Penn Vet . But not all participants were Quakers: the co-chairs were able to bring in a “secret boxer” for their last and final round to intensify the anticipation.
Being able to interact with the different schools was one of the major highlights for the participating boxers and one of the reasons for the event.
“It’s a huge benefit to be able to fight with other schools,” second-year Wharton graduate student Chandni Chopra said. “Unfortunately with graduate programs, we don’t intermingle very much. This is the first event throughout history that we had Penn graduate students come together to fight and enjoy this event.”
This is the second year that Fight Night was hosted at the 1923 Ice Rink. Hosting Fight Night on campus, Chopra said, contributes to the immense support and involvement among spectators, which is mostly Penn’s student body and alumni.
Event co-chair and third-year Penn Law student Zach Spencer, who is a former fighter, contrasted his past experience of fighting in a warehouse for 2013’s Fight Night.
“It was fun, and it’s very different. When I fought, it was in a warehouse. As far as comparing the two, they were equally difficult.”
Last year’s event raised $65,000 for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Philadelphia.
“Our focus this year is to build upon literacy centers with computers,” Spencer said.
Along with great support from its students, Fight Night also is well funded with a total of 12 sponsors.
“It is one of the most well sponsored events,” Chopra said. “It has one of the highest attending rates between two schools. People come out to support their fellow students and fellow peers to see how hard everyone has worked.”
As a tradition, there is an after party following Fight Night. This year, it was at Sound Garden, featuring performers MIMS and Chingy.
“Looking at this today, it’s really nice to see the team putting off their efforts and paying it off this way,” Spencer said.
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