Nick and Amy's Excellent UFC 116 Adventure

(Sadly there were no magical phone booths involved. And Socrates wasn't there either...)

Before I get going I'd like to say that UFC 116 was easily the most entertaining of the four live UFC events I've had the privilege to attend (UFC 84, 100, and 102, being the other ones), and for anyone that hasn't had an opportunity to go to a live UFC event, you need to find a way to do so. The big-fight atmosphere in Las Vegas is something that should be experienced by every MMA fan at least once in your life. No matter where it's held, attending a UFC event live should absolutely be near the top of your 'Bucket List.' 

Disclaimer to those with short-attention spans: This is a long read.

Pre-fight Press Conference

When I heard that the UFC would allow some fans into the pre-fight press conference, I thought, "That would cool to go to." Then when I found out that they'd only let in the first 250 fans, I thought, "Well, I'm not gonna wait in line for hours just to get into this thing." After spending the majority of the morning at the pool, I looked at my watch and saw that it was 11:45am. Since I knew that the press conference was going to start at 1pm and my wife was going to need some time to get ready for the day, I decided I'd show up and see if I could get in.

After quickly showering, I made it down to the Hollywood Theater (which is right off the main casino floor) around 12:30 and noticed only about 70 or so people standing around waiting to get in. I was given a wristband by some guy in a tux and engaged in some small talk with the guys around me who were also waiting to get in. When they opened the doors a little after 1pm, we headed to the upper seating area and grabbed an open table. Before I arrived I thought that my chances of grabbing one of the 250 spots were slim to none, but I'd say that there were only about 100 or so people in attendance. 

The press asked the typical questions, the fighters gave the usual answers, and all in all it wasn't very exciting or informative. It was still cool to be there though. Brock was in a surprisingly good mood, but towards the end he gave short answers and kept saying that he "just wanted to fight." Akiyama looked bored stiff and Carwin didn't have much to offer either. Only Leben really looked as if he was enjoying himself. 

Fight Club Q&A, Weigh-in, Live Event, and Miscellaneous Thoughts after the jump

SBN coverage of UFC 116: Lesnar vs. Carwin 

Fight Club Q&A and Weigh-ins

One thing we noticed right off the bat was that in the last two years since we'd been to a UFC event at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, the weigh-ins have become a much bigger deal. When we were last here (for UFC 84) the Fight Club Q&A and the weigh-ins were held in one of MGM's ballrooms, so after we pounded a few drinks in our room and headed off to the festivities we just assumed they'd be held in the same place. While traversing the long hallways we were surprised at how empty they were. The only people that were headed in the same direction as us were shirtless guido-looking dudes who looked as if they'd been pulled from a Jersey Shore open-casting call and chicks in bikinis who had mountains of flesh-colored silicone for breasts. Turns out we were going straight towards the entrance for the Wet Republic, the, uh, clothing-optional pool at MGM, and the weigh-ins are being held inside the actual arena. Great.

Once we arrived at the arena we settled into our seats about 10 rows up and prepared for the Q&A and weigh-ins. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this Q&A session as I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't a bigger name involved. Dan actually surprised me though as he came across as very humble and gracious.

I knew from that infamous exchange he had with an anonymous MMA critic that Dan Hardy was an extremely articulate and intelligent person and he underscored that by giving great answers to the various questions thrown at him. It was a bit funny listening to Dan Hardy and Mike Goldberg dance around the topic of Hardy's next opponent. Since most everyone at the Q&A is pretty savvy about the goings-on within the MMA-verse, the crowd was well aware of the rumor that Carlos Condit was going to be his next opponent. To their credit they didn't insult our intelligence by straight up denying it and they acknowledged that the fight was a "strong possiblity." Duh. 

I was surprised at how many people lined up to ask Dan questions as during my past experiences with these Q&A sessions people are reticent to ask questions and there are only a few who ask for anything other than pictures and hugs (which is frowned on BTW).

As the Q&A came to a close, they let in the general public for the weigh-ins and we ran to our room to pound a few more drinks while the UFC 116 Countdown show was replayed from 3-4pm. We got back to our seats about 15 minutes before the weigh-ins were set to begin and looked around to see that the half of the arena that they had blocked off was only about two-thirds full. We expected it to be packed to the rafters and couldn't believe that there weren't more people there; especially considering that this was: A) A huge event; B) A holiday weekend and C) Going to be airing live on Spike TV.

Ten minutes before the weigh-ins are set to begin, Burt, "The Babysitter to the Stars," as Joe Rogan calls him, comes out, they pause the Countdown show and he urges the fans in attendance to cheer loudly for "every fighter, not just your favorites." Then a producer comes on stage and tells us we need to cheer since they will be capturing the audio and using it for the Spike broadcast. The crowd cheers loudly for 30 seconds straight before starting to die off but the producer keeps waving his hands around as he implores us to keep it going. After about a minute and half of continuous cheering he waves us off and they finish playing the Countdown show.

As fighters begin to come out for the weigh-ins, it's clear that the crowd has no interest in doing anything but politely clapping for those undercard fighters who they have never heard of before. This was not surprising. 

The weigh-ins were pretty uneventful and Amy and I were extremely disappointed that Seth Petruzelli didn't have anything entertaining to offer for his weigh-in entrance. We had become spoiled by Tom Lawlor's hilarious impersonations and expected something equally good out of the "Silverback". Oh well... Huge pops for Bonnar, Leben, and Carwin. Thunderous boos for Lesnar. Deafening "meh" for Akiyama.  

UFC 116 Event

This is what two $200 tickets got us.

Yes, that is a picture of the view from our seats. People often say that there are no bad seats at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, but this photographic evidence speaks otherwise. I can't tell you how nervous we were when we arrived at Section 221 and noticed a giant screen right in front of us as we ascended the stairs to Row N. I thought, "Shit, this sucks." Getting to our seats 15 minutes before the first bout was set to begin I told my wife that this won't be so bad, it'll be like watching the fights on a giant TV. Make that a giant mirrored TV. Our worst fears thankfully weren't confirmed as at first I thought that the screen would almost totally block our view of the action in the cage. We could still clearly see the Octagon and we resolved to watch the cage for all the stand-up and then the screen for the ground-fighting.

The first two undercard bouts bored us to tears. Huge snooze-fest between Madsen and Vemola as well as Roberts and Petz. Just a couple of really terrible fights. Then we came to Harris/Branch. Although this was a very interesting stylistic match-up, in my eyes, it started off slow and wasn't very exciting. As the second round ended, I decided I'd duck out for a quick smoke and figured all I'd miss was another decision. Bad idea. I was in the stairwell right outside my section, just finishing my smoke, when I heard a roar that sounded like a bomb had just went off. This was the first time any loud noises had been made by the audience since the fights begun so I knew that I missed something big. I ran up the stairs cursing myself and reached my seat quickly enough to see the replays of what would become the KO of the Night. The audience loudly oohed and aahed every time Branch's head was shown bouncing off the canvas. From that point on, I resolved that I wouldn't miss any more of the action, nicotine addiction be damned.

Kendall Grove's fight was the first one that brought us to our feet (because his was the first bout that we had money riding on) and we cheered like maniacs when he pulled off the decision. It's amazing how much betting money on sports increases your enjoyment of them.

As the Spike-televised portion of the card began, our excitement was palpable as Seth Petruzelli was set to make his entrance. When we had seen him walking around the casino a few days ago and stopped him for a picture, he promised us that his entrance would be "awesome." Well it never happened. As some non-descript music played, both he and Romero made their entrances and the next thing we knew they were in the Octagon ready to fight. Big let-down. 

Tushcherer's fight was the next one up and the next one that we had money riding on (he was a big dog and we thought there was a chance he'd top-control his way to an upset decision), so we tempered our enthusiasm for Schaub's sweet KO with the fact that we we had just lost a bit of coin. We used the long break that followed as an opportunity to buy a couple of shots of Tequila Cazadores at the bargain price of $10 each. As I threw back my shot (no salt or lime, that shit's for pussies) it hung in my throat for what seemed like an eternity as my brain screamed to my body that this wasn't a good idea. It eventually went down only to come back up much later that night.

We made it back into our seats just in time to watch the awesome Baba O'Riley montage video, which does an amazing job of pumping up the crowd before the main card starts. Sotiropoulos/Pellegrino was a good scrap that had its moments but paled in comparison to the four fights which followed it.   

We put $50 on Stephan Bonnar as a whim the day before the fights as I figured that he was unlikely to lose five fights in a row. Good thing I did as it made his comeback victory even more thrilling to watch. Let me tell you the crowd was into that fight from the beginning, they love Bonnar in Vegas and they were on their feet from the beginning of the second round. It was so loud that I wasn't able to hear his post-fight comments.

The crowd came back down to earth a bit for the Brown/Lytle fight but only momentarily as that bout had some crazy momentum swings that once again sent the crowd into a tizzy. Everyone seated around me swore that Matt Brown was going to finish Chris Lytle when he locked in that D'arce choke and when Lytle came back and finished Brown everyone kind of looked at each other as if to say, "WTF kind of submission was that?" Pretty awesome stuff. 

Unless something really incredible happens in the next six months (which is entirely possible), Leben/Akiyama has my vote for Fight of the Year. Oh. My. God. What an absolute war. During that insane second round when they were going toe-to-toe with each other, it felt like the entire arena was shaking. Everyone was stomping on the ground. It was pandemonium. Needless to say, the crowd went ape-shit when Leben secured the triangle and tapped out Akiyama. People were jumping up and down in the stands, drinks were getting sloshed on me and I didn't give a fuck. I was hoarse from screaming by the end of the fight, and when Leben won all I could do was smile since not only had I made out like a bandit for laying a good-sized bet on him, but, oh yeah, we still had the main event coming up. What an awesome feeling to have just witnessed one of the best fights I'd ever seen and then realize that Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin are fighting next. 

You would think that the crowd would have been wore out from all the excitement of the previous fights, including the instant-classic we had just seen, but, no. There was a huge pro-Carwin contingent in attendance (all wearing "Team Carwin" shirts) and he got arguably the loudest cheers any fighter got all weekend. When Brock came out there were the obligatory boos, however there was a tangible feeling of respect and awe as he walked out to Enter Sandman. Everyone stood on their feet and there was this wonderful feeling of anticipation and excitement as we all wondered if there was some miraculous way that this fight would somehow top the last one. 

Incredibly, it did. 

As soon as Carwin rocked Brock the crowd was on the edge of their feet. There was this unbelievable feeling of suspense over whether Josh Rosenthal would step in and stop the fight, it was almost Hitchcockian. For several minutes I felt frozen, afraid to even move an inch. As I saw Brock struggling to regain his composure, I repeatedly thought, "Please don't stop it, please don't stop it, please don't stop it." What a way to top off an amazing event by having Brock Lesnar survive everything Carwin threw at him, only to come back and submit (!) Carwin in the second round. 

When the card ended and we left the arena, I felt an adrenaline rush and feeling of elation that is truly hard to describe. I can only say that I'm not sure how much happier I could have felt if I just found out I won a $300 million Powerball jackpot. 

Miscellaneous Final Thoughts 

• We saw Joe Rogan perform stand-up at the House of Blues Friday night after the weigh-ins and had a blast. Rogan is hilarious and raunchy as hell and the crowd loved him. What was really great was the fact that Eddie Bravo (who was in the front row) kept buying Joe shots of Jagermeister and by the end of the performance Joe was pretty drunk. Kudos to him for maintaining as well as he did, although at one point he repeated the same joke twice. One big part of his act was mocking the song "Hey Delilah" and even though the bit was funny, it was excrutiating hearing him sing the song over and over, mostly because I hate it with a passion and it got stuck in my head for the rest of the night. 
• Whatever you do, don't ever attempt to walk to In 'N Out burger, or you might end up on the freeway like we did. I checked Google Maps and it showed us walking directions to In 'N Out, I made sure that i asked for walking and not driving directions and sure enough, it said to walk straight up Tropicana Ave. It didn't seem right but who am I to question Google freaking Maps. Well, the next thing we know we're almost getting hit by cars as we are walking on the freeway on-ramp. Bad idea. We would've just taken a cab, but the last time we were in Vegas we took a cab to In 'N Out and we ended up stuck in the packed drive-thru lane for almost 30 minutes and our cab fare came to $45 before tip.
• Beware of exiting the MGM Grand Garden Arena through anywhere but the main entrance. We took a side exit and had to walk for about 20 minutes through a back alley that stunk like something out of Oscar the Grouch's wet dream.