Dragon House MMA Profits

Shaan tells a story about attending a local MMA fight event at Dragon House in San Francisco that showed how people were eager to get out after COVID.

"I went to a live MMA fight at Dragon House this weekend. We got cage-side seats for $50 at Kezar Stadium. It's not a huge stadium, but when I walked in, the crowd was just lit.

There were several factors making it intense. First, these are amateur fights where fighters are regular people - they deliver for DoorDash or work at consulting companies by day. Each fighter has about 20 people there supporting them - friends, family, even moms yelling 'kill them!'

Second, everyone's drinking. There's only one concession stand selling beer and Costco pizza. Third, it was a totally different crowd than I'm used to - I usually hang out on Tech Twitter and crypto Twitter, but these were real people dressed up like they might meet someone, treating it like a club.

Three fights broke out in the crowd after matches. When I told my brother-in-law how much better the crowd was compared to pre-COVID, he said 'People are ready to live.' You could see it - people were just lit. The whole event was insane.

We even had this amazing fight between a Mongolian fighter and an Irish guy. As soon as the Irish fighter came out, the whole crowd was chanting 'Ole Ole Ole.' He had a tattoo of Ireland on his body. I didn't even know where this huge Irish contingent came from."