The Summer of Ruffled Feathers
    By  ALEJANDRO GUERRERO

It was an old storefront in a village four hours South of Mexico City  that belonged to my friend’s family.It used to be the town’s general store, but now, nobody was using it.

Why not try out a bar we thought? There was no rent, and only one other wateringhole in town to compete with.

     What we needed was a unique marketing strategy, and you better believe it, we came up with something… unique.

     Drinking while watching chickens kill eachother. It sounded simple enough, but as we would soon find out, organizing an underground cockfighting ring is harder than you would think.
  Just get some roosters, make them fight and rake in the cash, right? Fuck no!! Have you ever tried to make roosters fight? They’ll bore you to death before they have a go at each other.
   It turns out that fighting cocks are specially trained by experienced breeders, and they cost  anywhere from the hundreds to the thousands of dollars to buy. It seemed like a good area to outsource, so we invited cock breeders to enter our three-day, grand-opening, tournament.

Each day, there would be four teams of four fighting, for a total of eight fights per day.
So now we were ready to have fights in the bar… and rake in the cash… right? WRONG!

   As if by magic, not only did we have the 48 cocks and their owners participating, but now there were about ten bet takers, two referees, a few fluffers (to make the cocks angry), some kids to cart away the bodies, food concession stands, and security. A lot can happen over a few tequilas, but I didn’t know you could start an economy.

    So our cut was the entry fee, a small chunk of the betting money, the fees from those selling food, and of course the bar. But you couldn’t have a proper event without some mariachis! So to top it off, we added some mediocre impersonators and their backup musicians. What a party!

   But… as the saying goes, it’s not a party ‘til the cops crash it. I guess the chief of police got wind of the event and he felt it was his duty to prevent the activity, unless of course we hired ten officers to attend the event and make it safe. Well, we wouldn’t want to compromise anyone’s safety at an underground cockfight… so added ten more to the bandwagon!

Now, the juicy part, fight night. Crowds of people came, the booze was flowing, the blades were attached, and the roosters let loose. If you’ve never seen a cock fight, there is no pecking involved, a blade is attached to one leg, they are released, and the fight ends in seconds, money exchanges hands, and preparations are made for the next one. This was not a large venue, but thousands (US) were gambled in each fight, making for a tense environment. But we were just the house. No risk, no problem.