They say you can smell fear and if that's the case then it must smell a lot like liniment.
That's the first thing that crosses my mind when we emerge from the lift and start walking towards the makeshift training rooms at the Conrad Hotel being used for Hong Kong's first Hedge Fund Fight Nite.
The second thing that strikes me - once the doors are open and the bankers-cum-boxers are revealed - is that I've got it all wrong.
There's a slightly nervous air inside, for sure, but fear doesn't seem to be a factor.
Neither does the flab I expected to see rolling over the belt lines of men for whom, until recently, the term 'box' only came into play when it was the thing that stopped them from getting to the office doughnuts.
The 12 brave souls on the card tonight have been drawn from across the financial sector, paired off according to their weight class and thrown in front of 600-odd industry colleagues who while not exactly baying for blood, have certainly been aroused by the promise of a bit of biff. And, of course, by the various fluids with which they have been dousing down their dinners.