Sock Hop

If Dancing With the Stars has taught us anything, it’s that the ballroom can be a perfect place to throw down. That’s why boxing promoter Roy Englebrecht hosts Battle in the Ballroom, the bi-monthly professional boxing event now in its 22nd year, in the Irvine Marriott’s 13,000-square-foot ballroom. Featuring 10 hot young scrappers—with headliners Fernando Quintero and Edgar Vargas—strapping on the gloves (not the sequined kind) for five bouts of championship slug fests. It’s the longest-running and most successful professional boxing-club show in the country and has featured 36 current or former world champions, including “Sugar” Shane Mosley and Johnny “Mi Vida Loca” Tapia. Watch these fighters dance around the ring and serve their opponents with uppercuts and jabs rather than fouetté rond de jambes . (Kim Kardashian not included.)
Thu., Oct. 9, 7:30 p.m., 2008