Sorry it took so long to get this post up, but I've been super busy at work the past couple of weeks.
Okay, this is all about my big UFC adventure. It's going to be a very long post, so consider yourself warned. And some pictures may be a bit graphic if you've got a weak stomach. :)
Wednesday was weigh-in day. I took a 1/2 day off from work for the event. The actual weigh-ins didn't start 'til 4:00, but the doors opened at 1:30 and there was to be a Q&A session with fighter Pat Barry (swoon!) starting at 2pm. I for darned sure didn't want to miss one single moment of any kind of action. We arrived at the Kentucky International Convention Center just after 1:30, after having parked two blocks south down 3rd Street. We sat in the 8th row, and I was dead center with the stage and looking directly at the scales.
A little background info in case you don't already know this about me...
I myself have only been an MMA fan for less than 18 months. I don't know every single fighter to have ever fought in the UFC, although I do know quite a bit about quite a few. Mostly from having watched reruns of old fights. For the most part, as I've watched these old fights over and over and over, I developed a sense of who I like and don't like as a fighter, whether it's based on their style, the abilities/capabilities, their attitudes, their personalities, or whatever. Sometimes two guys will fight that I know absolutely nothing about, so trying to "choose sides" is a coin toss, sometimes I try to make an early prediction based on nothing other than their physique or lack of tattoes (remember, these gross me out), other times I just say to myself, "may the best man win" and then might become a fan of one or the other afterwards. Other times, two will fight that I happen to like very much. On those occasions, it's tough to choose which one I'd like to see win, such was the case with GSP vs. Koscheck. I was in no way disappointed when GSP won, but I was very sad that Kos lost.
Last summer when we went to watch one of the payperview events, Pat Barry was on the card. I truly knew nothing about him and very little about his opponent. It was one of those coin toss situations, so I rooted for Pat Barry. He won my mental coin toss and he won the fight, yea!! This past January, he fought again, again I rooted for him, again he won, yea!! Up to this point, I'd never googled him and knew absolutely nothing about him other than he had no visible tattoes and had won his last two fights and liked to throw kicks (his background is in kickboxing).
So the opportunity to listen to him speak for an hour on Wednesday was a chance for me to learn more about this person I knew very little about. OMG! What a neat guy! Not only is he drop-dead gorgeous in person (tv does NOT do him justice), he has got such a fabulous personality and he is too freaking funny. He wasn't telling jokes persay, but he was telling stories and answering questions from the audience and just has a very lighthearted way of answering and regaling us with his personal experiences inside the octagon. We basically laughed our butts off for an hour. And he has got the most amazing smile! That alone would've won me over as a fan. After the hour was up, he then spent the next 45 minutes signing autographs and having his picture taken with the fans.
If you'll notice, he's wearing a different shirt than when he started speaking because some woman in the audience asked for the shirt of his back and he gave it to her. Holy crap, now I know!! And what a delightful 5 minutes it was to stare at his abs while he was waiting for a replacement shirt. **swoon** Obviously I was so mesmerized though, I failed to take a photo of him shirtless. What was I thinking????? Well, okay, I know what I was thinking, but I can't blog about that here. ha!!
Now, I've no doubt that the UFC probably paid him nicely to stay out there for a couple of hours and schmooz the crowd. Part of me was thinking, "is this guy for real? Is he being genuine or just putting on a good show because he's being paid to do so?" He seemed genuine and sincere, but I guess if someone were paying me a few grand, I could pretend to like everyone for a couple of hours also (well, okay, perhaps
I couldn't, but a lot of people could).
Yeah, I looked like crap, but he is just too cute!!
So what convinced me this guy is the real deal?
As we were leaving the actual fights on Thursday night, pushing our way out of the arena with the thousands of other people, I spotted Pat once again, walking through the crowd, making his way to the street-side door of the arena like the rest of us, and people were approaching him one after the other asking for pictures and autographs. The man kept stopping, signing and giving everyone that fabulous smile. He truly seemed to be enjoying himself. Now this is a man that could've escaped the arena out the "back door" with the other fighters, surrounded by security so he wouldn't have to deal with the crazed fans, but chose to walk amongst us commoners. Yeah, I think he really was the real deal. Needless to say, I've googled him since getting on the 'puter today and read up on the man. He has earned me as a fan for life. He's my heavy-weight heart throb now, move over Frank Mir.
So back to the weigh-ins...
Besides getting my picture taken with Pat, I spied light-weight fighter Kenny "Ken-Flo" Florian sitting in the crowd. I've been a fan of his from the very beginning. I was amazed that nobody else was approaching him, most were mobbed around some other guy I later found out was Matt Serra. So I sucked it up, stepped outside my comfort zone and approached Kenny. I apologized for bothering him while finishing his lunch (he was stuffing the remains of a salad into a paper bag and taking out an apple to eat), asked him for his autograph and photo and he was very obliging. :)
Sorry I cut off the top of your head Kenny!!
This guy was in the audience and it drove me crazy for the longest time as I knew I'd seen him before, but couldn't figure out where. Finally got it...
He's Ariel Helwani, a reporter/on-air personality for MMA-Fighting radio.
I got pix of most of the guys as they were weighing in, but there were so many, and the majority I knew little if anything about. So I just posted some of my faves...
This is Joe "Joe-Daddy" Stevenson. Yes, he's wearing Star Wars undies.
This is Joe Silva, the "matchmaker". He's the one that decides who will fight who for the UFC.
Ringside commentator, Joe Rogan. He's also a stand-up comedian (although I don't care for his jokes on stage). He was the host of the show Fear Factor, and he was on the comedy News Radio.
I personally could've cared less about their presence, but John and all the guys were ga-ga over the ring-girls. **yawn**
This is Diego Sanchez, season 1 T.U.F. (the Ultimate Fighter reality show) middleweight winner. Always been a big fan of his, although I'm not a fan of his shaved head. He had such nice thick, black hair, I hardly recognized him when he came out.
Diego and his opponent, Martin Kampmann.
They were the last of the weigh-ins and we now headed out of the convention center to go back to our car. We left the room and headed down the hall that we had come in while most everyone else left in another direction. We thought nothing of it, as I said, we were just going out the same way we'd come in. So we're walking along and this door suddenly opens and this guy steps into the hall. I'm like "holy crap! It's Matt Serra!!" Again, I've always been a fan of his. A couple of other people were approaching him and I was struggling to get my camera out of my bag and as I got ready to snap his picture, he suddenly stopped talking to those other people, looked right at me, put his fist ups and got into a fighting pose. I was so startled, I thought perhaps he was upset I was getting ready to take his picture, so I put the camera down. He relaxed and started to talk to those people again, so again I started to take his picture and again, he put up his fists and again I put down the camera and just looked at him, uncertain what to do. He smiled and said, "I'm posing for you."
Oh, duh.
Before I could raise the camera up again, he left those other people and started walking towards me, I shoved the camera at John and told him to take my picture with Matt. Matt was soooo nice, and funny. Mind you, I'm 5'11", he's 5'6", so I was sort of towering over him. As I put my arm around him, he tried standing on tippy-toe to get up closer to my height, I laughed and said, "here, let me come down to your level" and I bent my knees. That position was awkward so we kind of compromised and this is what I got...
Just wish the photo hadn't turned out so blurry. But oh my gosh, what a nice guy. I was already a fan, I'm just a bigger one now. :)
Now some security jerk came along and ran us out of there, like we were doing something wrong? We didn't know we weren't s'posed to be in that hall, so we left out a different door and were completely turned around as to where the car was. We had to walk all the way around the outside of the convention center, and as we approached the corner where we needed to cross to get to our parking lot, all the UFC guys suddenly emerged from the rear door of the convention center and we walked right in the middle of the crowd. OMG!!! Alessio Sakara (sp??) was walking right in front of me, I could've reached out and grabbed his butt. I was once again scrambling to get the camera out of my bag and was going to snap his picture when we got to the next corner and he turned to go their hotel, but he stepped away so fast, I ended up getting the picture of the guy in front of him instead. OMG!!!.....
It was none other than Diego Sanchez. The main fighter on the card. Holy crap!! I could've brushed by Alessio and grabbed Diego when we were walking and didn't even know the opportunity was there.
Before the fights started, this was the view way up on the 2nd level where our seats were located. Unless I could be assurred of getting better seats, I don't think I'd ever shell out the money for a live event again.
Ring announcer Bruce Buffer, and the winner of the fight, Mark Munoz (sp?). Yea!!!
DROOL!!! Oh holy crap how I wish I'd had seats down on the ground level. John spied this guy (light blue shirt, leaning forward) thru the binoculars and this was the best my camera could get. It's none other than George "Rush" St. Pierre!! The welter weight champion of the world. He's from Canada, and that French accent is enough to drive a woman wild!!
And to George's left is Dana White (yes, a man named Dana), he's the President of the UFC.
Oh GSP!!
So this is the picture from the final night of the night between Diego Sanchez & Martin Kampmann. I was soooo hoping Diego would win...
And he did!! But not before getting beat up pretty badly. I think he may have ended up with a broken orbital socket, at the very least, he needed a lot of stitches. Both fighters were taken to U of L Hospital after the fight ended and missed the post-fight news conference. Oh, and one of our favorite referees, Herb Dean. Herb is waaay cool!!
yeah, it's going to take a while for that face to heal.
So that was my big adventure. Loved, love, loved it!!
