Ever wanted to punch a co-worker in the face?
Esquire Network is turning that wish into reality for six pairs of dueling colleagues in its aptly-named new reality series “White Collar Brawlers.”
In the premiere episode airing Tuesday at 10 p.m., New Yorkers Andrew Devine and Ryan Sainscott — both financial planners at a consumer goods company — undergo six weeks of boxing training at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn before settling their differences with three bouts in the ring.
While the two are competitive about bonuses in the office, Devine and Sainscott’s beef is more personal. They used to be roommates, and when they moved out a month early and a subletter only one wanted squatted in their apartment, they ended up owing $13,000.
Gleason’s Gym owner Bruce Silverglade — who helped train three pairs of contestants in the six-episode series — says he usually wouldn’t put someone in the ring after only six weeks, so he accelerated the training for the show to coach the men in just the basics.
“The fellows that came in they were green, they had never been in a boxing gym so it was easy to teach them — much easier than training a lot of the young men that come in here that want to box because everybody’s macho when they come in here and they think they know what they’re doing,” he says.
But even though Devine and Sainscott were in decent physical shape, both were surprised by how grueling the boxing training was and how much it consumed their lives. A typical day would see them wake up and work out for an hour before work, go to the office for nine or 10 hours, then head straight to the gym for three hours of training.
“Coming from me being pretty athletic, fairly strong, I thought it would be a fairly easy transition — turns out the training was so different,” Sainscott says.
“Going through this experience I really didn’t see friends the entire time, didn’t go to the bar, didn’t go to any parties,” Devine adds. “I lived with my girlfriend at the time and rarely even saw her.”
Though most reality shows promoting conflict trade in fist fights and bleeped curse words, “Brawlers” is more about the journey from desk jockey to throwing a mean right hook — both contestants say they are more disciplined about time management and confident in the workplace as a result of their experience.
Besides, Silverglade says, a grudge with your opponent doesn’t matter much in a sport where conditioning is the key.
“Either you’re going to pick up the training and learn what you’re doing or not,” he says. “Being mad or not mad doesn’t help in the ring.”
Though each one-hour episode has only one winner, Devine and Sainscott claim they’ve mended fences since slugging it out.
“I wouldn’t say that the fight was the thing that proverbially buried the hatchet, it was really going through this arduous experience together, kind of growing as people and we came out really respecting one another,” Devine says.
Two more New York-set episodes of “White Collar Brawlers” will air Dec. 3 and Dec. 17.