Last week the New York Knicks successfully defeated the San Antonio Spurs, ending the 53 year drought for the New York sports team. In this case, history did repeat itself as the last time this NBA rivalry took place in 1999, the Spurs won. Throughout the course of this NBA finals, a number of disturbing viral videos were released across media platforms showing Spurs fans in New York City getting taunted, abused and attacked by swarms of New York Knicks fans. One of the videos, which was eyebrow raising to the internet, which has gained immense national attention online, is of a Spurs fan who stood his ground and fought off multiple Knicks fans who attacked him in what appeared to be a sea of 100 plus Knicks fans – the icing on top of the cake is that he is a Native Philadelphian.
Wallace West, a longtime North Philadelphian is a Philadelphia 76ers basketball fan and also a San Antonio Spurs basketball fan. Wallace had spent some years working in San Antonio, and it his third favorite city behind Miami and Sao Paolo in Brazil. He often reflects on his time and experiences there, but most importantly the being a Spurs fan , even before the current Victor Wembanyama Phenom.
“ I saw Wemby some time ago and I was like this kids gonna be the future GOAT(greatest of all time) , I mean look what we just witnessed he’s 22 and just led his team to the NBA Finals,” Said West
That being said, since the New York Knicks had swept Wallace’s hometown team the 76ers, a whopping 4-0 in the second round of the eastern conference finals, he decided to support his other favorite team the Spurs. An NBA Championship is rare, it’s not often that a team you support is in the finals, so he decided to travel to New York City with his friends for a game 5 watch party of the NBA series. Wallace’s friends are Knicks fans from North Jersey, he was with two female friends and a male friend. His friends, as Knicks fans, also wanted the opportunity to watch the to see their team (the Knicks) close out the series. They invited Wallace knowing he is a Spurs fan, and knowing he’d appreciate the trip, “I said to them I’ll come with y’all, but I’m not supporting the Knicks, ”.
At this point, Wallace had already seen the recent other viral social media clips and videos of how Knicks fans were treating other Spurs fans in New York, but wasn’t worried.
“Even though they invited me, I told them if anything pops off just get back I didn’t want them to get hurt or have to protect them. It’s cool to heckle, but chasing somebody down, and they didn’t even do anything, ripping their jerseys, jerseys which are like $80- $150 dollars. I don’t respect that, Knicks fans out there were crossing those lines. There’s a line of etiquette and they were crossing those lines,” Said West
The afternoon of the game, he and his 3 friends walked around Manhattan for about 2 hours, two of his friends got tired and the group decided to head to the watch party which took place at Penn Station. Wallace relayed that in the first half of the game at the watch party, everything was practically fine, a few people heckled him here and there, but nothing as serious as the videos he saw of what happened to the other Spurs fans online. But, then came halftime.
Wallace left the viewing area to get a bottle of water from the vending machine, next thing he knows, miscellaneous Food and Drink items start hitting him. “ Boom, something hits me, boom something else hits me, food & drinks starting hitting me, and i cant see who it is because it’s coming from every direction, all which way, then the “ f—k the spurs chants start coming from every which way,” At this point in time, the Knicks crowd starts building and surrounding Wallace, no one had physically acted yet, just people swarming him and throwing items at him. Pressure was building, chants were being screamed at Wallace, phones were out recording , it was lights camera action. Wallace spotted an individual in the crowd who was in the act of throwing something at him, so he spotted the individual , approached them and gave the individual a warning. Next thing he knows the first punch was thrown and hands started getting laid on Wallace.
“In the beginning of the video, you see me going after a person, that’s who first threw stuff at me, but of course that part wasn’t in a lot of the videos, and you wouldn’t be able to tell that’s what happened. I was trying not to get anyone involved that wasn’t involved or acted first,” Said West
Next thing he knows, Knicks fans left and right were throwing punches and swinging on him , as seen in the viral video. “ I had to defend myself, Knicks fans were swinging on me, I swung back. If you weren’t part of the problem I wasn’t even looking at you,”. Now, a sea of Knicks fans is around and swarming Wallace, but he held his own.The police were on site but, they the situation play out for a bit, Wallace couldn’t help but think that if if it was the other way around and he was initially attacking knicks fans, they would’ve arrested him in a heartbeat. After a few minutes of trying to get through the crowd, the NYPD interjected themselves in to grab Wallace and deescalate the situation. They escorted Wallace out of Penn Station, into a police car and to a local police precinct. The police asked Wallace if he wanted to press charges on fans that had assaulted him, and let him know he wasn’t going to be charged with anything as he acted in self defense. Wallace also does not smoke or drink. He was actually able to finish watching the game at the local precinct with NYPD officers, who he said were actually pretty cool. He relayed that while he was at the precinct, waves of Knicks fans would come in and out of the precinct and be taken to other precincts, as they were being arrested because of their behavior .
One important point West made is how the videos of the altercation made it seem like he was the one who started the altercation, or that he was just an angry Spurs fan looking for fights, but in reality that is not the case and not how he carries himself.
“A lot of the videos got this so wrong, because it makes it seem like I was antagonizing Knicks fans or salty that we lost, the game was still going. The Spurs were up by halftime this game, why would I start fights?,” Said West
Shortly after this, friends and online peers started to reach out to him for support, and to comment on the fact that millions of people had seen this footage posted of him fighting off Knicks fans on the internet. But on the other side of this, multiple people and entities have reached to wallace for promotion and to attend their events, and brand deals. He mentioned that popular online streamer Adin Ross had reached out to speak with him. This past weekend, Wallace was hired to participate in a wrestling match hosted at the Bok building in South Philadelphia by Pro Wrestling Entertainment, an indie wrestling company located right outside of Philadelphia and the “Belt To Ass” wrestling group.
“ I mean we were watching that video of him (Wallace) , you’ve heard it in sports and in life many times, that a guy has no fear. Well Wallace had no fear, i’ve never seen a guy defend himself against a whole city, we had to bring him in for the show,” Said Jason Abrams, Co owner of Pro Wrestling Entertainment
I asked Wallace if he thinks he would return to New York City anytime soon, he had no comment on the matter.
Leave a Reply