Nick DeRiso | Ultimate Classic Rock

Hyped by ESPN2 as a Battle of the Bands, the AFL matchup between Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley‘s LA Kiss vs. Vince Neil‘s Las Vegas Outlaws instead was no contest. The now 2-1 Outlaws blew past the Kiss 61-48 in Los Angeles on Saturday (April 11), keeping LA winless on the season.

In fact, the Kiss are on an eight-game losing streak dating back to last year. But that hasn’t stopped fans from flocking to their games. (Los Angeles averaged just under 11,000 fans a night in their 2014 inaugural season, while the Outlaws played before just over 4,000 last week at home.) It also hasn’t stopped this new matchup from becoming an instant grudge match.

First-year Las Vegas owner Neil, for instance, snagged former Kiss quarterback Aaron Garcia as head coach. Outlaws fullback Joe Mortenson also played in L.A. last year. “There’s rivalries all across the league,” Outlaws quarterback J.J. Raterink told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “This one seems like a natural because of the proximity of the teams and given who the owners are.”

Neil posted a celebratory tweet after his Outlaws used a 27-point fourth quarter to defeat the Kiss. The two teams will meet for a second time on May 4 back in Las Vegas.

And make no mistake, these rockers-turned-sports moguls are taking all of this very seriously. Both Simmons and Stanley have been fixtures at the LA games. They even started a team-based reality show.

Neil, meanwhile, reportedly told the in-house disc jockey at the Outlaws’ Thomas & Mack Center not to play Kiss music over the facility’s PA system, only to hear “Rock and Roll All Night” during the fourth quarter of a March 30 loss to the AFL’s San Jose SaberCats. There was a new DJ at the arena last week, according to the Review-Journal.