Regular readers of my blog and (particularly my) twitter will know of my obsession with the UFC. Who knows why its so full on for me, but I’d rather not analyze it and just BE obsessed – I’m good with it lol.
When I heard about the possibility of the UFC coming to Australia I naturally became very excited. I wasn’t the only one though. One of my best friends Phil Crown is a way bigger MMA fan than I am (yeah really), so naturally we both thought about going to the Australian event if it ever happened.
Enter Kage (Kevin) from Australia. Kage is his screen name on twitter, and that’s where I met him. He had been bugging Dana White from the UFC incessantly to bring the organization down under - who knows, maybe he was a part of the reason it came to Sydney? Through him I got my tickets – I’ll get to that.
The official announcement of UFC110 in Sydney came in late 2009, so Phil and I immediately booked flights to get them as cheap as possible and then went about sorting tickets (see how we did that in a fucked up order lol). It’s at this point that Kage advised me he could get in on a presale that was happening and got us some primo tickets.
With that in place Phil and I spent the next 3 months talking non-stop at our morning basketball runs about how amazing it was going to be – much to the displeasure of the other players, some who are fans but weren’t coming (there’s nothing worse aye, I totally understand how that feels, we should of just shut up about it!)
Friday the 19th of February finally rolled around and Phil and I flew to Sydney for the event. My Aussie manager let us stay at her place which was real nice of her cos the place is real central, on the Stadium side of the city to avoid crosstown traffic, and…well…free (thanks Petrina).
Once in Sydney, we picked up our rental and drove to Bondi to visit the very awesome MMA Warehouse store. As the UFC was in town, the store was stacked with cool stuff but just closed as we arrived. After much pleading through the crack in the door, Sebastian let us in – thanks dude. We would see this guy a bunch more times on our trip. Bought a couple of tees and some figurines, stoked.
That Friday night was also my friend Larissa’s birthday, so me and Petrina went and saw her at Middle Bar, and caught up with a bunch of my good friends.
Saturday was weigh ins day, something that I had been hanging out to go to and something my eldest son has been giving me heaps of ribbing about (I get it though, going to the fights is one thing, but getting excited about the weigh ins is loser on another level). I’d read on line that you have to get to the stadium around 11am to get in for the weigh in at 2pm. Because there is no tickets, you just have to be in the line and hope you make it. Thankfully Kage once again saved us and told us that if we joined UFC Fight Club on line, we got a guaranteed seat and admission to a Q&A with UFC president Dana White. We did that on Friday night, printed out the admission barcode and got in the doors at 11am while the public line grew and grew (it must have been 1 km long).
Once inside you were faced with this.
The amount of merchandise they sold through this stand must have been unreal – I helped the cause by buying a bunch of cool stuff including the Octagon book, something I’d been after for a while. Later they opened the doors for a signing stand including the legendary Randy Couture – was cool to see the hall of famer in person.
We also caught up with Kage who made our weekend the success that it was. Thats him below.
After a look around we made our way inside Acer Arena itself for the Q&A. Mike Goldberg (UFC TV host) came out to intro him, and then Dana came out and took questions from the Fight Club members for 2 whole hours, it was totally amazing. There was about 400 of us there and he was real personable and pretty raw with his answers – I loved it, especially when he was dissing the referees.
After he finished the public were allowed in, and they flooded into the arena behind us for the weigh ins. The arena was blocked off, so there was room for about 3,000 odd I’d say, and Joe Rogan hosted it as usual. One cool thing about it was the face off between Wanderlei Silva and Michael Bisping. Prior to the event, Bisping was talking tons of shit about Silva, and at the weigh ins their face off was really intense. Here’s a pic of Jardine and Bader.
I got this blurry picture of ring girl Arianny. She has been part of the UFC for ages and the boys wanted me to get a pic of her and this is the best I could get. And yes, in person she is real hot.
At the weigh ins I got to meet Stitch who is one of the UFC dedicated corner men who tend to the fighters cuts and bruises between rounds. I also thought he was a cool guy and on meeting him realised he was just that. I’m stoked with this picture.
That night me and Phil were exhausted from being so excited about the next day so we crashed early so we would be sweet for fight day.
Sunday morning we got up around 9.30 and were on the road by 10am to the stadium. Because this was a live pay per view in the US, it had to be held at a time were it was at a good time for US consumers, so the doors opened at 11am with the first fight at 11.45am. Naturally we wanted to be early so we didn’t miss anything.
Because we had been to the stadium the day before we didn’t need to queue for merch thank goodness. As it was fight day there was 17,000 people there, so naturally everything took longer.
Once inside we got some really unhealthy breakfast (lol) and then the inner doors opened and we made our way inside. The seats Kage had got us were crazy good, and I counted 12 rows to the Octagon. Here is a shot I took right at the beginning when we sat down.
While we were sitting waiting for the action to begin Phil noticed Joe Silver walk past. Joe is the matchmaker for all UFC fights. Not one fight happens unless he say so, so we ran and got a pic with him. It was funny cos nearly everyone had no idea who he was and why we were taking a picture with him.
Soon after the fights started and it was awesome. The card was pretty loaded anyway, but some of them were extraordinarily good. I’m not going to go into each of the fights cos it will make this blog impossibly long – and it already is anyway.
All I’ll say is that I was revved for the Bisping/Silva and Cain/Nogs fights – and they delivered and then some. During the Silva fight I totally lost my voice from screaming at the top of my lungs. Classic.
Below is a video blog of fight day that I made. I managed to call every fight, but the CB Dollaway was real close, it could have gone either way.
So that’s my trip. It was intense, exciting, and all that I expected. I’m so there again next year.
