LAS VEGAS — Sin City turned into Fight Town and then celebrated into the early hours Sunday with a giant salsa nightcap.
Fernando Vargas appeared to be the only person in town to call it an early night, taken to a local hospital for a check after being pummeled on the head by Oscar De La Hoya in their championship fight.
To the victor went the poolside spoils--a private party at Mandalay Bay where talk of the boxers' bad blood was chased by bloody Marys. As De La Hoya's family and supporters again cheered his win on taped replays, hundreds of spirited but uninvited fans milled outside the fence, wondering how to crash the gates.
It's a scene that revisits Vegas with every big fight: another chance for the powerful, the rich and the connected to sit with celebrity, and the nobodies to at least strut through the gilded casino scene and brush against the famous.
Shiri Cohen, and her niece Shany Gelbman, tourists from Tel Aviv, positioned themselves along a hallway leading to the Mandalay Bay Event Center, hoping to catch a glimpse of the beautiful people heading for the bout, parading beneath nine-foot-tall boxing gloves hanging from the ceiling.
"We came here to relax from all the tensions at home," Cohen said. "We planned our trip here around the fight because we want to see movie stars. This is the place."
They would end up a little disappointed. Their biggest sighting of the night: Lakers owner Jerry Buss, which wasn't bad because Cohen is a big NBA fan. But in the crush, she missed Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx and Don Johnson, rapper Nelly and supermodel Giselle, singers Sammy Hager and Brian McKnight and comedians David Allen Grier and Keenan Ivory Wayans.
Fans hunting for boxing champs got their fix with the likes of George Foreman, Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, Evander Holyfield and Shane Mosley.
Fight night in Vegas tips the already weighted scales even more toward decadence and debauchery; the polished limousines seem a little longer, the neon a little brighter, the hair a little bigger. The fashions telegraph so much about one's place in the universe:
Those men arriving in other casinos' carriages, in linen slacks and silk sports shirts? High-rollers, with no need to make an ostentatious impression, save their pricey, oversized cigars.
The middle-age couples in finely tailored suits and sparkling, slinky evening wear? From the ranks of casino executives and corporate sponsors.
